Can you believe that I have now been qualified a full two years? I can’t! It has been almost two years to the day since I donned the scary title of ‘Staff Nurse’, with all its responsibilities and rewards and I can honestly say that I wouldn’t want to be anything else. I’ve had so many adventures (not to mention the near-miss disasters) in that time and my life has taken such a positive direction. I’d like to say I planned it that way, but I think it’s more default than design! Carla reminded me last week that I will need to revalidate next year and I nearly choked on my Gregg’s sausage roll. I’m pretty good at keeping my portfolio up to date (thanks to the RCN website and Matt’s OCD) so I’m not worrying about it. I’m more worried about the time flying past and not doing everything that I want to do! I had a proper heart to heart with Carla about career progression and what my aspirations are – I honestly couldn’t hope for a better mentor and she said the best thing I could ...

My brain is officially frazzled! I have just finished the last of the courses that Carla booked me onto and I won’t lie, I’m knackered. I’d forgotten just how difficult it was to study, go to work AND service a love life! Let’s not even talk about the state of my house – something had to give! Don’t get me wrong; I’m not moaning (well, not in my usual way) and I know that I am a very, very lucky nurse to have the opportunity to further my knowledge. I know that there are loads of nurses who don’t have as much investment as I’ve had in the last few months and I really feel for them. I worked out how much the individual courses would have been if I’d had to fund them myself and it would easily be over a thousand quid – so I’m really grateful and not moaning!! The first course was the male catheterisation which I was itching to do. I couldn’t stop talking about it at home which made Matt alternate between green and pale. He made sure that he knew the exact dates of my course – and...

So here I am – 5 months into my first permanent role as a staff nurse and I’ve actually managed to have a full two weeks off! I’ve been meaning to have some time off for a while now and had actually booked leave in January – however, the events of the past couple of weeks has made me realise that I need a bit of time to think and to recharge my batteries – just some ‘Me’ time, if you know what I mean.   I won’t lie – I was tempted to go and get a sick note and go off with stress, but that would make me feel like a fraud, there are people who are genuinely off with stress and I didn’t want to go down that route if it could be helped.  Dealing with Jo and her antics has started to become a full-time job in itself. Not only did she pull that meds stunt on me, but she’s since made it really clear that I’m on her radar, and she’s picking and poking whenever she gets a chance. Take, for example, the ward round last week.  Steve, the Charge Nurse has asked me to att...

‘Eeny Meeny Miney Mo, catch a nursey by the toe. If she squeals let her go, Eeny meeny miney mo’. Not the ideal way to choose between two epic job offers but that’s the position I find myself in! Who’d have thought it – little old me being in demand!! I’m still on cloud nine and I haven’t even spoken to my buddy at Recruitment Panda yet to tell her the good news. She will be made up for me, I’m sure. After the hours of preparation that she put into me to give me the confidence to even go along, she will be delighted that her hard work has paid off – and I will have a proper job. Both of them were quite tough interviews. There was none of that ‘pin, pulse, you’ll do’ attitude, they were proper in depth. The hospital role really explored my knowledge of what it meant to be a nurse but thankfully my angel from Recruitment Panda had advised me to revisit the NMC Code of Practice and I knew it cover to cover. When they asked me about being accountable for my actions and omis...