Today was probably one of our more chaotic, busy but interesting days. In the morning we were informed that there was a health conference that we got invited to and an Adult Nursing belonging group meeting that we could attend. These were originally not on our schedule but since they were both such great opportunities we ended up attending both and rescheduling one of our classes. We started the day with a lecture on public health in the UK by James and Aldo. Aldo has just recently retired but comes back to teach every one in a while but he used to work in community development in public health. James has a large focus in working on tobacco use and prevention in the UK with the NHS. I learned a lot about public health which is a topic I am interested in. What I took away the most from this session had to do with a question I asked that had to do with my group’s research question. My question had to do with the subject or immigrants, specially ones who do not speak english at all or at a proficient level and accessibility to healthcare in the UK. Aldo said that it had become less and less common for there to be tailored healthcare to those that do not speak English, he said that a large part of this is due to the increase in nationalism in the UK and partially because of Brexit. This answer really surprised me because over the past few days we have learned and heard about how accessible healthcare is here because of the NHS and how culturally aware many of the workers are, and I feel like not having tailored healthcare by having a translator contradicts how accessible it really is.
After this session we headed to the botanical gardens again for the health conference. The weather was lovely so it was a nice little break to walk over there. The one presentation I really remember was one by Simon who was presenting on the topic of Health Mobility. This was a topic I had never heard of before so I was interested to learn more. What I found really interesting about this presentation was when Simon talked about therapeutic mobility, I believe he defined it as movements that facilitate health. He asked a question after that really sparked my mind. He asked if cure or recovery are the only thing we are supposed to feel from movement, is it the only result? Or are there other things that we should feel from movement? I have no answer to this question but I have been constantly thinking about it since he asked it, it was something that had never crossed my mind.
The second event we got to attend today was a belonging group for adult nurses at BCU. I did not really know what to expect but I went in with an open and curious mind. We got to meet many of the lecturers at the Adult Nurse program at BCU and some of the students as well. We got to play games which was one of my favorite parts since I won one of them. However besides being a social event I got to learn a lot about nursing in the UK and nursing techniques worldwide. Me and a few peers got to talk to one of the lecturers who had been a neuro ICU nurse for the past seven or so years. She told us a lot about her experience during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. She told us that the number of patients she was in charge of literally quadrupled. My favorite memory from this session but also the day as a whole had to be when we were playing a game where we were given a fact about nurses and had to guess which country these nurses were from. The question was somewhere along the lines of “The building we are in is named after me, where am I from?”I knew who the building was named after, it was Mary Seacole who is a famous nurse that was based in the UK. I made a guess of Pakistan and then the professor looked at me and said “Does Mary Seacole sound like a Pakistani name?” and we all broke out laughing. In context the professor who said this was in charge of the game but also is of Pakistani origin. Just so everyone knows Mary Seacole is not from Pakistan but from Jamaica. The rest of the meeting was really enjoyable and interesting and it was even better because it was International Nurses Day and we all got to celebrate together.
The last part of our day we were in the simulation lab at BCU. I once again did not know what to expect but I was really excited. We had to put our bags away and put on protective gear to go in. We went to three stations, one was a hand washing simulation, another was an anatomy quiz, and the last one was a CPR/basic life support station. All three were really fun and really interesting. The last portion of the lab we watched a video about how to deliver bad news or life changing news to a patient and their loved ones. The video was very informative and really tested our knowledge. I knew that breaking bad news to patients was extremely hard but I had never really realized the multifold of people that can affect. I definitely learned a lot of skills that I will need for the future in my profession as a nurse.
