Succeed as a Nursing Student And Make A Good Impression

Meet Aaron, a nursing student who gives advice for other students to succeed on placement and with their assignments!

Hello! My name is Aaron, I’m 24 and currently live in sunny Brisvegas! It was quite the journey getting into nursing and definitely not my original plan. In year 12 I was going to study medicine but then received an early offer to study media design so took that instead (quite the contrasting career options there ahah). I realised I did not like that whatsoever so between the years of 2016 – 2019 I tried studying animation, social work, theology/ministry, teaching and even a general arts degree.

Funny enough, working at a bottle shop is what made me consider nursing. Chatting to the multitudes of nurses coming through for their go-to relaxing juice post-week of shift work and hearing all the stories that come with job definitely piqued my interest. So I did my research, talked to some friends and family who encouraged me to apply and now here I am!! Just finished my second year at QUT.

What kind of speciality do you want to get into?

Paediatrics all the way, but I have recently realised how broad of a speciality it can be. So my top 3 areas would be Paediatric Oncology, Babies or Neonate Intensive Care.

What are some fun facts about yourself?

I have a very frequent desire to book last minute flights to either Canada or Hawaii and leave that same day and I am convinced it will happen some day. I have also been singing since I can remember and with that have come to be one of those people who sing their sneezes and non-stop serenades the cat (please don’t judge me).

Tips for placement

Be super nice to the nurses. I hate to break it to you, you may be good at something but you definitely don’t know everything and your attitude makes a HUGE difference. If you’re perceived as willing to learn and get your hands dirty, more opportunities will be offered. If you’re perceived as arrogant and a know all, well, I think we know what’s going to happen there. On my GP and minor procedure placement, I was told not to expect to observe or help out with the minor procedures like skin excisions and circumcisions and that the GP who does them never lets nursing students in. But he saw how hard I was willing to work and how teachable I was and let me in on as many minor procedures as I wanted. It was incredible!

Please. Ask. Questions!! You will get so much more out of placements if you ask questions and you’d be surprised how helpful the nurses are. In reality, a lot of them were in your spot only a few years ago themselves.

Talk to the patients. I see so many other students get really awkward and will just go in and start doing stuff while the buddy RN does the talking. If you struggle to converse, think about what you would like if you were in hospital in their position, or if it were a family member or a good friend.

A hello can go a long way and just because a patient is in the hospital doesn’t mean they should be void of all meaningful connections.

Generally, if they don’t want to talk they will let you know or it will be in their notes and that’s okay! Offer them a smile instead! You can’t get better at something until you keep on doing that something! Take it from someone who is usually introverted!

Know your scope of practice. It’s not the buddy nurses job to know, it is yours. Students have had their placements cancelled for working out of their scope too so be wary of it!

Show the nurses how much you appreciate them! If you learnt something significant let them know! Thank them for being your buddy today and going out of their way to support you. And if you really want to offer the cherry on top, on your final day, bring in a thankyou card and some treats. I’m yet to find nurses who don’t appreciate anything from chocolate and donuts, to flowers and $5 dominoes pizza!

Tell us about your own placements so far?

Okay so I have had placements in Aged Care, General Practice and Minor Procedure, Paediatric Oncology and Palliative Care so far. Paediatric Oncology was 100% my favourite and really is an art form in its own because on top of your clinical knowledge and your theoretical knowledge, you NEED an imagination.

Take a dressing change for example: in adult nursing, most patients, not all, but most, will be like “Okay, let’s get this done and over with”. But with paediatrics, it can be terrifying for the little ones so sometimes yes, Spiderman is your best friend, and he told me that he had this done last week and it didn’t even hurt! Have I had to give my best Olaf impersonation and sing ‘In Summer’ just to do what should be a simple procedure? Yes! And I wouldn’t have it any other way!

Palliative care probably has been my most unique so far, however. Definitely not for everyone emotionally, but there is something special about caring for a person in their last moments. It’s also unique in that it goes against everything you’re taught as a nurse. It’s drilled into us from day 1 how to recognise deterioration and how to respond, but in Pall care, it is the opposite. The goal isn’t to treat deterioration but how can we give them the best quality life/moments/care in the time they have left.

Hoping for a rural placement next year though! Mt Isa perhaps?

What is a typical week like as a student?

This is a slightly hard one to answer being one of the pandemic nursing students. Most units have a lecture and tutorial/workshop which can be taken online or on campus. And then being a nursing degree, usually, there is a 2-3 hour “Clinical Practice Session” or CPS as we call them that involves learning the practical ins and outs of nursing and testing those skills through simulations. So all in all about 5 hours per subject of contact time.

Assignments in the second and third years tend to be mainly case studies because they’re a great way to assess multiple criteria at once. And of course, can’t forget the placements! Expect anything from aged care and school nursing to neurosurgery or nephrology. I can’t say it is not going to be hard but definitely worth it!

What are the 4 main ways you prepare for class?

My main way is to just do the readings. Unless you have a guest lecturer/tutor, the content pretty much always is derived from the set readings.

Number two is look up anything you don’t understand. There is some fantastic resources on Youtube like Osmosis, ICU Advantage, Khan Academy and Crash Course to name a few.

Thirdly I pretend that I am teaching a class on what I have just learnt. I have found this to be a fantastic way to test, develop and remember knowledge and is a great way to refine knowledge for when talking to patients about things.

And fourthly, if I have time, flashcards!

What are 3 things you wish you knew before you started your course?

How flippen intense it is! There is so much content to cover in such little time so be prepared to have a few Friday nights with your head in the books. Even though I swear I can hear Netflix calling my name sometimes. Stranger Things may be a great show but you will see stranger things as a nurse so a short term commitment in the grand scheme of things for a lifetime that could be made into its own Netflix show is worth it.

Following on from this is knowing multiple study techniques. With so much to cover, you’d be surprised how helpful knowing different study techniques can help you to learn, remember and recall a lot easier.

Just because you say you’re good with all smells doesn’t mean you are. I’m a stegglar for saying I’m really good with smells but you will find yourself saying otherwise when your helping drain an infected sebaceous cyst the size of a Maccas quarter pounder that someone has had for the last 40 years. Sorry, were you eating?

What are some mistakes you or others may have made that you’d suggest others avoid during studies?

Firstly, know your scope of practice. It changes every semester/placement and I’ve known students to be kicked off of their placement on the first day for working outside of it.

Secondly, meal prep during placement. You don’t know busy until you’re doing 40 hour week placements on top of normal study, previous extra curriculars and work. One kebab may be fine, but one a day for 5 weeks won’t be such a good idea on so many levels.

And please please please try not skip classes. You may think you know something but trust me when I say there will be something on there that you don’t and it will be on your exam and there will be ¼ of your marks dedicated to it. I speaking from experience here people!

What are your 5 big tips for fellow/future students struggling with assignments?

I don’t think I have 5, but my biggest tip, especially if it is a case study, is to make connections. My best assignment marks have been the assignments where I have taken the time to contact people already working as a nurse in the industry!

This can be as simple as asking your buddy nurse on placement for their email to ask questions when they’re free. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve been asked in an assignment of a “pure nurse led intervention” for something and who better to ask than someone who has actually had to do it!

And for that reason, don’t leave the assignment to the last minute! Sure, you may have that one assignment that you started 24 hours before it was due and still managed to get a distinction on it. This will not be the case every time and I guarantee that you will have those assignment questions that leave you completely stumped and 24 hours doesn’t give a lot of time to ask for help!

Thirdly, make use of any extra resources that Uni or TAFE provide. As I said before, I’ve tried many different career options and with that many different learning institutions. Each one has offered research skills classes for people struggling with research, essay writing classes for those struggling to put together their essays, basic anatomy classes for those struggling with anatomy etc. Take the time to find your assignment weaknesses and see what your uni/TAFE has to offer to help. You’d be surprised what they have!

What have been your 3 main challenges during your course and why? How did you overcome them?

I struggle with standard textbook learning and lose motivation really quickly when anything is really content-heavy. Being a hands on learner I try and combat this by taking a more creative approach to learning like pretending I am teaching the content to my own class or using online interactive resources. Asking extra questions on placements to fill in knowledge gaps and making the most of when the Uni clincal learning rooms/mock hospital are open for students to self learn help facilitate learning too.

Learning the human body! You need to know what’s normal to know what’s not and boy oh boy have I come to realise how intricately complex it is. But fear not! I have found the best way to overcome this is on placement too. Maybe its because I’m hands on but I remember better learning about neuroblastoma’s in a hospital looking after a patient who has the condition compared to reading it out of a textbook.

How hard it is to pay for things on placement. If you can work normal hours during full time placement and still continue full time study, hats off to you! I definitely can’t! But I will let you in on a little secret that no one seems to know about. Most uni’s have grants available that you can access if you qualify to help ease the burden. Trust me, you need to apply!! I mean, that money is just sitting there folks, use it!

Tell us about your USIN job

So I consider myself incredibly blessed to have received a job at the Queensland Children’s Hospital (previously known as Lady Cilento) as a University Student in Nursing or USIN for short. The equivalent of the RUSON role I have seen in other states.

It honestly has been one of the best experiences for me, especially considering that I know I want to get into paediatrics as well and cannot speak more highly of QCH. I work the whole hospital so in the nearly 6 months I have had the job, I’ve worked in surgical, neurology, oncology, burns, babies and cardiology to name a few and usually have two distinct roles.

You get 1:1 “Special” roles where you stay in a room with a patient who needs close observation, and you get “Clinical” roles where you get to assist RN’s, do vital sign obs, assist daily livings/hygiene cares and help to do re stocking. It has given me the most unique exposure to hospital life and once again, I honestly cannot rave about it more

The biggest challenge, as I have said multiple times already is scope of practice. Your scope of practice as a RN, a nursing student, a USIN, an AIN is always different and important to know but never see it as a limitation. Just when you think you’ve learnt what you need to learn as a USIN, something else will come up. You will also get a unique view of caring when you do 1:1 specials. Someone who has head to toe full thickness burns needs to be cared for and communicated with differently to a baby, or someone with cancer, or someone with neurological issues and these are all things you get a unique exposure to as a USIN and will do nothing but help you as a RN.

I cannot speak highly enough of the Queensland Children’s Hospital and the opportunity they have given me. Honestly leaves me stumped for words and hope I can get a graduate nurse position there when I finish my studies (QCH, are you reading this haha?).