On Friday we began our trip to Stockholm, we got the 09:00am train from Hudiksvall station to Stockholm central, arriving at around 11:30. After we checked into the hotel we were staying in we decided to go to Stockholm’s Old town, Gamla Stan. We spent a few hours walking around admiring all around us, seeing the gorgeous buildings and the many Irish pubs around. We went out for dinner and then headed back to our hotel for the night to get a good rest before we head on our trip home to Ireland.
Up bright and early on Saturday morning, rearing to go we went and got breakfast in the hotel and ate all we could. Then we got a taxi from the hotel to the airport, arriving at 11:00, we were there in good time as our flight wasn’t till 13:30. We all had a browse through duty free we boarded our first flight to Germany, flying with Lufthansa, the flight was comfortable, we then landed in Germany with very little time between our connecting flight to Ireland. We had to move fast to get to the gate for our connecting flight. Hopping on our flight to Ireland we were all excited to be seeing our family again. Once we landed and got out bags we all said our goodbyes and parted ways after the three weeks.
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Its our last few days in Hudiksvall so things are starting to wind down at the hospital. I worked my last day today, so it was sad to be saying goodbye to al the nurses, staff and patients that I have grown fond of. I can’t believe how fast the 3 weeks have gone, when I look back the amount of experience I have gotten is invaluable. Between taking blood, putting in catheters, seeing surgery and also working on my non-verbal communication skills due to the language barrier. I would not have gotten these experiences in Ireland so being able to experience them so early on in my career is something which I appreciate as it has given me confidence in knowing I can carry out challenging tasks in a professional and successful manner.
Some aspects have been challenging also, I think the language barrier has been toughest. Throughout the three weeks this has gotten easier as I have learned some Swedish phrases and I have also been able to communicate non-verbally through body language and facial expressions. My favourite part of the experience was definitely seeing the shoulder replacement in surgery, this was so interesting as they used a lot of advanced technology and instruments which were amazing to see in action. Overall this experience has been one I will never forget, I am sad to be leaving Hudiksvall and the hospital staff but I am looking forward to going home where I can understand the language and also see my family. Our final weekend in Hudiksvall started off by celebrating Amy’s birthday on Saturday, and so we decided to travel to Sundsvall for a bit of retail therapy! The area is quite similar to Stockholm with regards to architecture and spaciousness but filled with shops. The IKEA is much bigger than Dublin’s store and needless to say; we found it easier to go in than to leave! Yesterday was well and truly our day of rest before the mayhem of alternating shifts began again, so we decided to go for a walk around the lake nearby the hostel which is absolutely gorgeous! On ward 7 - the stroke and general medical ward - is where I have been for the last (nearly) three weeks, under the supervision of Toby. He has made every effort to ensure that I have been fully catered for in their hospital with regards to placement in different specialties as he knows I’m interested in ICU, paediatrics and surgical nursing areas. Being a mentor and translator hasn’t been an easy role for him I’m sure, and also having his usual delegation of patients, but he has somehow managed to juggle all at once and I’m so grateful to him and his colleagues for being so accommodating and kind. Since being in the hospital, I’ve been allowed to draw blood samples which is an opportunity that is usually not awarded to student nurses back home until 2nd/ 3rd year of college, so I’ve been extremely lucky! This morning on my ward was relatively quiet and I went up to view the ICU where I saw a patient being intubated which was fascinating to see in real life and not through the lens of Grey’s Anatomy! Tomorrow morning my shift in the paediatrics ward begins at 6:45am (the earliest so far) and I can’t wait to see their system in comparison to Ireland’s. Wednesday I’ll be in various surgeries throughout the day which I can hardly wait for as I’ve always been keen to view surgery from the staff’s prospective. Although it’s early to be narrowing down options, I’m hopeful that following these placements I will have clearer ambitions regarding what speciality of nursing I’d like to pursue; as right now, they are all so tempting! -Alisha Quinn On Tuesday I did my first evening shift here in Sweden. Unlike Ireland they break up the day into three shifts: morning, evening and night. I think this is a brilliant way of arranging the shifts and it makes the working day a lot shorter and less tiring. I have found that they have a little less rest time in between shifts though so I was working really late on Tuesday and then very early again on Wednesday morning. So I got very little sleep in between! Tuesday was probably the busiest day I have experienced on the ward so far. I work in the emergency section of the orthopaedic ward, so it can be quite unpredictable. The day shift had handed over only five patients and within three hours we had another four new admissions. This was great as it gave me an opportunity to practise my nursing skills. With each patient admitted I was responsible for taking the NEWS score (EWS in Ireland) and performing a bladder scan. I also had to record all of this information and enter it into the computer system within the hospital. The next day was the day I had been looking forward to since I got to the hospital. I got to stand in and observe a hip replacement surgery. Although the patient and staff all spoke in Swedish it was still an amazing experience. I was so enthralled in what I was watching that I totally lost track of time and before I knew it, over three hours had passed, and the surgery was complete. It was quite brutal and dramatic as I had imagined, as it is one of the most invasive surgeries which takes place within the hospital. I couldn’t believe it was real and it was really amazing what they could do and how much of an improvement they could make for the patient with just one surgery. It really was a once in a lifetime experience and one which I will not forget any time soon. -Deirdre Eames After our first week of placement in the Hudiksvall hospital, we have finally started into settle our placements and in the camp lodge. This week I was working on the Elective side of the orthopaedic ward, being exposed to patients who are in for surgical procedures such as hip replacements and knees, flatfoot. All these procedures have been planned so this section was very quiet. However this has allowed my supervisor Kent to go through many different things with me as there is time for learning. I had the opportunity to experience things nursing students may only see in their fourth year of nursing. This week I got to take vital signs, remove urinal catheters, take blood sugar samples and assist patients with general day to day needs. We are all getting to experience the full dynamics of the hospital life, however there have been challenges. The language barrier has been difficult in my first week, I have been picking up on little words such as ‘Hej’ meaning hello and ‘god morgon’ equals good morning. Hopefully by next week will have improved more to be able to speak to patients with more ease. After our first week filled with ups and downs from travelling and settling in we felt it was time for us four to take a well deserved brake on our first weekend off from work we decided we would go into the town of Hudiksvall on Saturday evening and walk around, after our exploring we went to The Bell which is an English pub in the town and we had our dinner there and a drink. The bartender remembered the four girls from last year’s nursing course and gave us a starter of chicken wings on the house. It was very a friendly atmosphere, he told us they have an Irish night on the 25th of April but sadly we’ll be gone home. The food was delicious. I ordered fish and chips and it was so scrumptious. We had a nice day Sunday looking around the camp site, which is the most beautiful place to be. Looking forward to our next week of work placement and we’re looking into going somewhere next weekend. We started our placement in the hospital on Monday morning at 9am, where we all met in the canteen and waited for Jessica, who is the coordinator and organiser of our placement. Jessica brought us to our wards. Amy and Dierdre were on the orthopaedic ward, Alisha was on a medical ward and I was on the cardiac intensive unit ward. The hospital is very big and seemed to be quite busy. Each of us met our mentors that will help us through the 3 weeks, they were all lovely and very helpful. We also got our work schedules, I discovered in Sweden they work a maximum of 8 hours a day, this is very different to Ireland, but I think it is a good system. The first day was an introduction so didn’t have to work. I officially started on Tuesday. My day started at 5:30 am as we had to get the bus at 6:30am to be on the ward for 7 am. I was greeted by Sandra who was a nurse that was working that day, I went around with her all day, the language barrier was quite tough at the beginning, but Sandra had very good English and translated everything for me.
On my first day I got to take patients vital signs and also their blood sugar levels. Sandra showed me how the computer system worked, there was no paper documents in the hospital everything was recorded on the computer systems. I was also given a tour of the cardiac ward and all the different equipment they use for emergencies. On Wednesday my day started at 2pm and ended at 10 pm. I spent the day taking vital signs and taking blood sugar results. I also got the chance to take a bladder scan so see if the patient had fluid retention. This was much easier than I thought as it was very like an ultra sound. After work I got the bus home, there is a bus every 30 minutes that stops outside our camp. The bus was always on time and ran very smoothly. It was still very cold as there was still snow and all the lakes were frozen, our camp and the hospital are very warm, so the cold weather didn’t bother me too much. -Aine The anticipation for beginning our time in Hudiksvall had finally come to reality when the four of us boarded our 5am flight, to one of two destinations. We arrived in Frankfurt at 8am with tired, groggy eyes and ears ready to pop from pressure changes! Our flight to Stockholm was at 11am and we arrived around 1pm, followed by a train journey which took us to nearby our hostel for the night. The weather here at the moment is no worse than Galway’s winter (without torrential rain) and the snow is slowly dissolving. Initially we were stunned at the hostel set-up as most of us had never had such an experience, but we ended up enjoying our time there and we were too exhausted to think otherwise.
We went out to a local restaurant in the evening and had explored a little afterwards. This morning we left for our train at 9am, and after misreading the ticket, we missed it. Luckily, the train stations here are equivalent to shopping centres back home and we had plenty to fill our time with until the next train. We arrived in Hudiksvall in the evening after a 3-hour long journey, where we later met with Ellen – whom has English... as good as our own - our host in Camp Igge. We have 2 bedrooms to ourselves and so far, the whole hostel too! We begin our work experience tomorrow after a briefing and we are looking forward to the exciting challenges ahead. - Alisha Quinn |
Nursing 2018-19Alisha Quinn Map of Hudiksval |