Exams!

Hi to all!

As I am sure you can appreciate it has been a very long two weeks of exams and revision. My last exam is tomorrow and then I start my final placement on Monday. 

It has gone so quick and it has been hectic to say the least. It has not been the most easiest of weeks and we have this one last exam to go. 

But I am very glad that I have put the work in and revised as I went as it has helped a lot with exams. 

We have had four exams, plus our OSCE's, which takes it to 5. I found out I passed my osces which I am over the moon with! Those who failed had chance to resit the following week, so hopefully they have now all passed. 

We then had chance to collect our marks to see percentage wise how we had done in our osce exam. This is then stapled in to our practice portfolio. This allows our mentors to see how we have done in our osce to ensure we have been assessed as competent in our clinical skills. 

We have then had our mathematics exam, which was our nursing drug calculations. This was assessing how to correctly calculate the correct dose of a medication, whether it was in tablet form, liquid or injection. We had to demonstrate our working out using the correct formulae. Then we had to work our the answer and demonstrate how to measure this out using a syringe, medicine pot or number of tablets.  This was all completed online using a special program that has been designed for nursing students. 

It was very good to use until several people got confused or their work wouldn't save! Never trust technology I say...

Again, just a little tip for revision. 

Know your learning style. 

I am a visual learner. It took me years to suss this out! But once I realised, I have discovered that watching anatomy videos on youtube, redrawing diagrams and rewriting notes in a different format and using colour codes really helps. I have also purchased some anatomy posters from the internet and stuck them on my walls in my study. Looking at them has really stuck in my head. I have used colour coding, drawings ( i'm not very good but it sticks in my head!) I have worked with others on my course to go through things and I have also redone tutorial work we were assigned. They don't just give you work for the laughs, trust me! This work has been a revision god send. I remembered a lot from doing the work for tutorials then going over it again for revision. 

If you aren't a visual learner, you may be more for lists or acronyms or poems or songs. 

Make rhymes from acronyms or lists, for example, 

7 at breakfast

12 for lunch and

5 for dinner.

(Spinal vertabrae)

Things like this make it easier to remember. 

I always remember dorsi flexion and plantar flexion from this.....a plant... grows in the ground....dorsi...dorsal fin, comes up out the water (like a shark).  Thus dorsiflexion is moving the foot upwards, plantar flexion is moving downwards. 

(Bet you wont forget that in a hurry!)

Your lecturers and tutors will always be willing to give a helping hand. They arent there to spoon feed you, but are there to guide you. University is about self learning and self discipline. Your university student's union will provide help, and you may also have a guidance centre which can help you on this also. 

Exams are tough and can be stressful. So remember to take time out and focus on yourself. Try and keep a regular sleep pattern too. It may be easier said than done, but if you're studying nursing, you know what you tell your patients also applies to you! 
I am now almost finished first year. I cannot wait to get this last exam done, catch up with everyone afterwards before hitting placement on Monday. Then it is 6 weeks before summer. 
Do you have any plans? Make the most of it. I shall be working full time, having a holiday then will start working on the pathophysiology we have to learn. It gets a lot harder in second year and from talking to them, it is the patho exam that they all struggled with. So any little head start helps. 
The life of a nursing student! 

OSCE's

So I have had my OSCE's, or the Objective Structured Clinical Examinations

Hopefully you will find this link helpful...OSCE

Osce's seem to get everyone a little worried and nervous as you are performing so to speak rather than writing down on a piece of paper  or being sat at a computer.

I will say don't worry, but of course you will!

Not every university does these, and not all Osce's are the same. So it is best to see what your university does in regards to assessments.  My university did only have them in final year, but now we have them at the end of each year once again.  

This year, we have six stations, each assessing a different skill.

Each station is something many of us will have carried out on placement, depending on your placement of course! But we have learnt about them in theory in our lectures and tutorials, then we will have also carried out the skill to learn in our practical classes.

Our stations this year involved Basic Life Support, Oxygen Therapy, handwashing etc.

So it is important to know what you are doing! Not only for the exam, but in your career as a nurse. As nobody wants an incompetent nurse i'm sure! 

These stations are approximately five minutes each and there is an assessor sat in each one.  Sometime there will be Simman or a mannequin, other times there will be real live patients (actors).  However, regardless of whether or not your patient is real or not, it is imperative you interact and show confidence. Even if you are a bundle of nerves inside!  
The osce's are your chance to demonstrate your knowledge and competence in a given situation. It is important to demonstrate this so the university knows you can do this and you can show them independently away from your classroom peers.
Osce's are nerve wracking for people but they are over so quick that you may not realise just how little time you actually have.  It is good to show the skills you have learnt over the course of the year and to even have that confidence within yourself.  As a nurse you need to be confident within yourself that you can carry out those tasks.  Three years goes by very quickly, and before you know it you will be out on your own as a fully qualified nurse. 
So use those practical classes and placement as practice and gaining experience.  This will help towards your final exams at the end of each year, and once you qualify.

The osce's at our university lasted over 2 days, but you yourself are in and out within half an hour! Shortest exam you may ever actually have!
We did have that opportunity that if we had finished before the 5 minutes was up, we could step outside the station. If we then realised we had forgotten something, we could go back into the station and go over it or inform the examiner sat inside. As long as it was within the allotted time frame.

I get my results soon and hopefully I passed.
Just my written exams all coming up so it is a lot of revision to be doing now.
Luckily, having worked all year and even just doing an hour after classes most days or on the days it didnt quite sink it, has helped revision so much as I feel like I have retained a lot more than I thought I had!

So just a little tip when you do start. If there are those days where it hasn't quite sunk in, revise a little of it and go over it that same day or even the day after while it is still somewhat fresh in your mind.  Even if it is only for an hour. It helps immensely and will pay dividends when it comes to exam time! 

Dementia Friends

Recently, I have been made aware of a scheme called Dementia Friends. 

This a scheme aimed at all health professionals, in recognising and becoming Dementia Friends.

This scheme is all about raising awareness of Dementia, and how, as we are living longer, more and more people will be affected by Dementia. 

Dementia is difficult for some people to talk about. And it can be difficult to recognise the signs and symptoms of dementia.  However, through Dementia Friends, the various organisations involved are hoping that more people will talk about it.  They are hoping that through this, those with dementia do not have to go through it alone.  No one deserves to go through any difficult time alone, let alone a debilitating condition such as dementia.  

As I am sure you may know, there are varying forms of dementia.  

The links below will take you to varying websites with information on dementia. 

About Dementia

What Is Dementia?

Dementia

We recently had several dementia friends come into our university to talk about the scheme and what it meant.  Not just about what it is, but how this helps those out there affected by dementia.

Most people will know someone or have someone in their family or close friendship circle affected by dementia.  It may not be directly, but it will have affected them.  Dementia Friends is aiming to break down those barriers and unite all health care professionals (as well as others!) into helping those people affected by dementia.  Dementia can be scary for people and it can be overwhelming, So for those people they need to know they are not alone.  They need to know that there is support out there and people are not just standing by.  

Dementia Friends were amazing at coming in and educating us on the various ways you can help someone with dementia. It is important for us to know as health care professionals the difference you can make to someone with dementia just by having that little extra understanding through knowledge and awareness. 

For example, were you aware that with certain types of dementia, their colour awareness and depth perception is altered? So a black mat on the floor can look like a great big hole? So much so, the individual will not walk across it for fear of falling in. 

I would highly recommend anyone to attend these workshops and to be aware of those living in their communities with dementia. That little bit of help, such as walking across the mat first, or even moving it out the way, will make such a difference to that person. And that help will be appreciated. Not only by that person, but their relatives, their carers and those working with the person. 

Why cover this in a learning disability blog?

Did you know that people with Down's Syndrome are more likely to develop a type of dementia?

This extract below was taken from the Alzheimers website.

Down's syndrome and dementia

When people with Down's syndrome develop dementia, this is usually due to Alzheimer's disease. However there is a growing awareness that people with Down's syndrome can develop other forms of dementia.

Studies have shown that the numbers of people with Down's syndrome who have Alzheimer's disease are approximately:

1 in 50 of those aged 30 to 39 years

1 in 10 of those aged 40 to 49 years

1 in 3 of those aged 50 to 59 years

more than half of those who live to 60 or over.

These numbers indicate a greatly increased risk for dementia compared with the general population. Studies have also shown that in later life almost all people with Down's syndrome develop the changes in the brain associated with Alzheimer's disease, although not all develop the symptoms of Alzheimer's. The reason for this has not been fully identified. However, it is known that the protein that causes brain cell damage in Alzheimer's disease is produced from a gene on chromosome 21. People with Down's syndrome have an extra copy of this chromosome, which may largely explain their increased risk of developing Alzheimer's disease.

Please have a look at that website in relation to learning disabilities. Although these workshops were fantastic, I do believe that it should be discussed more in relation to learning disabilities and how this can affect those more, due to their learning disability. I have come into contact with a lot of people with dementia. And with those who have a learning disability and dementia, it can be difficult. Staff, carers etc may not have that training. They may find it difficult caring for that person. Understanding, coping, support, it is needed. And more importantly, the individual with a learning disability needs to know and understand what dementia is to them. 

Thus, as a Learning Disability Nurse, it is important you are aware of those with dementia, and how to support them. Those with learning disabilities and any type of dementia may need that extra support and understanding due to their differing communication needs or their cognitive capacity and abilities. This is why learning disability nurses are so important. 

And I may have stated this already, but please be proud of the career you have chosen and the people you support. You are their advocate, you're their voice. And everyone deserves, and has the right, to be heard. 

As it is known in Learning Disability circles, Together We Are Better. 

And together, we can be the change that is needed.