Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Further Studies.
A kid is crying at the bed in a corner of the room while the nebuliser is on her, her parents trying to comfort her. A woman, a relative of a post fit child is washing her hands at the sink in front of the nurses' station since 5 minutes ago. Here I am blogging.
Hold on while I remove the nebuliser and take the vitals of another kid who's on trial of feeds and waiting to pass urine.
Just a minute while I use the line "I'm sorry. Can I just have two relative stay with the child? Thanks.".
And let me just use the mic to call out "XXX, please proceed to Observation 2.".
......
God. That was loud. The mic's volume is either too high or outside is too quiet. It's just not that quiet here in Obs 2 though. The kid with the trial of feeds is crying like mad while the parents are feeding him the Pedialyte. My efforts of giving them an alternative to drinking the pedialyte failed, since the parents are insistent on giving him the blueberry flavoured pedialyte. Ok then.
......
Sorry, I was away for about 10 minutes while there was suddenly a flood of things to be done. Boy's urine test turns out normal. Got a little bit fed up when they said they didn't have the urine bottle. Humph! to the nurse who pasted the urine bag. You're supposed to give them a urine bottle. Then there's the reviewing of vital signs, two at the same time. It got a little hectic when Obs 2 looked crowded with parents. Oh GREAT! A 94% SpO2 just came in.
Be right back while I take the vitals of a post neb.
......
Good. 100%. "Wait at the waiting area, the doctor will call you again."
Tonight's been surprisingly alright. I'm supposed to be Practical Nurse today. I'm taking over Obs 2 while 'he' sends BOTH Obs 2 nurses for break. We have 5 doctors on night duty today. Good thing. Or the queue will just grow longer and longer. We're having 6 on the queue right now at 0335hrs.
I can't wait for my break. I want to get out of Obs 2 and get a start on writing the board.
Last night, during my break, I had a great talk with Kevin about further studies. Before, I was hard set on going to UK to get my Degree and then working there. But Kevin gave me advices saying that the Degree is really not that big a deal to go and get a certificate somewhere so expensive. It's just learning about management, research, professional conduct and stuff like that, not much about hands on work. So he advised me to take the cheapest Degree course I can find here in Singapore. In the end, expensive or cheap, we all get only $100 more in our salary.
After that he advised that I should forgo the Advance Diploma and spend my money on Masters overseas. Instead of taking Advance Dip in Emergency Nursing, I might as well take Master in Emergency Nursing. Take a leap. Thing is, I have no idea where to take my Master. Of course, I'm limiting it to either UK or Australia. I would much prefer going to UK but I don't hear so much about people getting their Master in Nursing there. So.. I don't really know who to ask about their experience learning in UK. Kevin said I should go to Australia. He keeps stressing that the cost of living in the UK is high. And I guess that makes a big part in my decision since I prefer to take full time study instead of part time. So if I take full time, I won't be working and where in the world would I get the money to spend on my rent and food and stuff like that, right?
Ok. Let's concentrate on my Bachelor first, alright? So there's 5 schools that's accredited by SNB. I did my research which I hope is reliable.
1. Griffith University offers part time study of 2 years. Requires 6 months working experience. Course fee is S$15,000.
WEBSITE.
2. La Trobe University offers part time study of 2 years. Course fee is S$15,000.
WEBSITE.
3. University of Sydney offers both part time and full time study of 2 years and 1 year respectively. Requires 12 months working experience. Course fee is S$23,540. (OMG!)
WEBSITE.
4. Curtin University offers both part time and full time study of 2 years and 1 year respectively. Course fee is about S$13,000.
WEBSITE.
5. University of Sunderland offers both part time and full time study of 2 years and 1 year respectively. Requires 12 months working experience. Course fee is about S$20,200.
WEBSITE.
So.. Most probably it's Curtin University for me then. It's one of the cheapest and it offers full time study. Yup.
Ok. You know what? I can't concentrate right now. I'm watching Beauty and the Geek. I loved Season 3. I fell in love with Scooter!
In my own world,
2:32 AM