The irony about nurses is that come an emergency outside a hospital and most of us (okay some of us, okay one of us namely me) are worse than useless.

A patient fell over in the hospital courtyard during my lunch break today after her ankle gave way. I dropped my sandwich and hurried over to try and help, but I couldn't do much. I managed to get the drip stand off her thigh and help her into one of the seats, but aside from that I couldn't think of anything to do (another staff nurse had already called her ward). I tried to get her to elevate her injured leg but she said it hurt too much, so I let it slide.

From what I could make out she wasn't that badly hurt, but it does strike me as at least mildly bizarre that here I am being trained to look after the sick and I can't deal with a fall outside a ward environment. The upshot of this is that I'm putting serious thought to doing a first-aid course when I have a bit more free time.

There's a rule in the NMC code of conduct which says that nurses have to help out at accident scenes, after all, and if someone knows you're a nurse and you walk away from the scene without helping out, you can be disciplined for it. Great, huh? Well, no, not exactly. Especially not because if an accident victim was offered the choice between a trained nurse and a trained first-aider as their first line of treatment before the ambulance got there, anyone with half a brain (and no fetish for nurses) would go for the first-aider.

Which I'll admit is a longwinded way of saying I think I need to learn first aid because in spite of two years of nursing college I'm absolutely goddamned useless in a tight spot, but there you have it.

Funny thing is that I'm not actually minding being back at work, not least of which because I've suddenly started coming into contact with - wait for it - first-years. Better still, they're about my own age, easy to talk to and more than keen for me to share my own meandering experiences about the branch program with them. I think being a senior student could actually be quite fun. Strangely, in retrospect second year doesn't look that b ad after all, never mind that bits of it were certifiably hellish.

(Like the exams I was convinced I'd failed because I spent too much time writing fanfic.)

Scary thought: the ward I'm on placement at will be transferring to the new hospital on September 11, by which point I will have seven of the nine shifts I need to complete to make up my practice hours tucked in the sewn-up back pocket of my jeans Per Una black trousers. Meaning that I will be transferring over with them. Meaning that I'll get two shifts' worth of advance previews of the brand-new hospital I am likely (if not definitely) to be placed at in final year. Part of me's damn pleased, because I think modern hospitals are cool, the building I'm working in is rather of its time and it will be kind of nice to work in a place where radiographers don't take X-rays in a converted suite of executives' offices. Part of me is scared as a new building equals New and Exciting Ways To Get Lost.

My evil fanfic continues to nag at me. It's all pretty much there now including the final three lines which, in a simplified form, came to me during my tea break. I could yet not write this thing, but I like my sanity where it is. I'd be more worried about this if it wasn't for the fact that there appears to be an audience out there for evil fanfics after all. I'm almost glad I didn't manage to get it written yesterday and instead concentrated on making a range of matched 'OMG OTP' icons (of which I have uploaded a grand total of, um, one). Damn pointless icon making.

Hey, maybe with this thing done, dusted and well and truly out the way I'll actually be able to get 'Seuche' out to some kind of schedule again? Damn this rabid, pushy and insistent plot bunnie for getting in the way of its elders and betters...

( But it could be worse, I could be writing about this. )

Will answer my comments and things tomorrow (I also have the weirdest compulsion to Do A Meme, but hey, that's just me. Maybe quentin_w the Meme King will have something good for me?). I don't have the time at present as I've got to go eat and get a decent night's sleep in preparation for another twelve and a half hours of joy... but hey, it's September and the nights are drawing in and getting cold and that means it's very nearly Autumn! It's finally coming! Hooray!