Week One...
Week One was tricky for me, there were administrative hurdles that prevented me from starting the Nurse Immuniser Course for the July 2013 intake. For anyone who knows me, I had taken that as a clinical indicator that it is another sign to give nursing away as a career! However, I must perservere, as I am now employed as a Practice Nurse for a fantastic GP down in Melbourne.
It took a huge shift in attitude for me to logon once I had the ruffles sorted out, and an even bigger committment to commence navigating my new online study space.
So to begin with, what have I taken from this setback? An attitude realignment, to start with. As someone who has felt very negatively about the nursing landscape for the last 11 months, everything that I perceive to go wrong, or not fall in place as I expect has been, for me, a reason to give up nursing. The last two weeks have tested my patience and committment to my nursing career. A career that I have been so close to throwing away. No more. I have a new job, with a practice that believes in me, my knowledge, my experience and what I have to offer them. I owe it to myself and to my employer to change my attitude.
BUT! How to so that? Firstly, committing to this course as being of benefit to myself, my employer and my patients. Committment means seeing through the tasks, assessments, assignments andexpectations of the course. That means reading, understanding, incorprating knowledge and extending and expending myself.....and it starts right here. Actually, it started in the coffee room with a quick introduction. That was hard enough, introducing oneself online to faceless strangers. Then entering the discussion regarding my opinion on the high rates of Australian Childhood Immunisation. I STILL havne't responded to another poster. I am not game to reenter the discussion as I know that my post will have torn apart. I KNOW that I have to reenter to complete that part of my assessment, but it is still so daunting to one who has so little self belief left. Enough of that. Why I am doing this course?
I enrolled in this course to enhance my employment prospects as a potential practice nurse. As a nurse who had spent the last almost two years in Aged Care (and wtinessing some atrocious acts of "Nursing Care" bordering on incompetence) I figured that I was unemployable back in the Acute Care sector despite a decade of working in Coronary Care prior to Aged Care. I just happened to apply for a job as a practice nurse, secured an interview and was offered the job that same day. My immunisation course had not even started! To me that was a sign that maybe I wasn't as washed up as I had previously thought. So even though I had secured a job in an area of nursing that interested me, I still need to complete this course.
Having read the Secretary Approval For the Nurse Immuniser for Victoria, and how it applies to me in a General Practice it means that even though I will (hopefully) have completed that course, I am still employed under circumstances which still give me access to a medical pratcitioner as an avenue for medical direction, and in time of need further medical advice. I may be able to administer vaccines as detailed by the Secretary Approval, but that I am still professionally obligated to understand not only those vaccines, but embrace and OWN the side effect profiles for those vaccines and explain those to my patients as a potential risk of administration. Not only should I understand the use of vaccines, and their side effect profile, but also have a thorough understanding of the disease that they are used as protection against. Also I need to be able to educate patients of those diseases, inform them of the potential side effect profiles to ensure that they are engaging in vaccinations as fully informed and educated as to the best of my ability to disseminate that information appropriately. Thus the outcome for me is that my patients are actively consenting to having vaccines and understanding the whole process from vaccine, to disease process and potential side effect profile.
