To be absolutely dreading work placement tomorrow because it's SO boring?

[Creoes]

I'm doing a nursing degree and am in my first year on my first placement. It's an outpatients department and I literally seem to just stand around for 10 hours doing sod all. It's SO boring. I'm not really doing any nursing at all, everything I'm doing a normal secretary could do. It's a case of shifting records from one drawer to the next for 10 hours straight. I look at my watch and it's 10am. I check again thinking at least half an hour must have passed only to see it's 10.05am. The days are SOOOOO long. I've stuck it out for 4 weeks now and only have 2 weeks left but I'm getting to the point where the thought of going in actually depresses me. I met up with a few uni friends last weekend and they're all really excited about their placements, have given injections, done dressings, looked after people - really nursey type stuff and it made me feel even worse. Yesterday I got there at 8am, nothing to do at all until 9am so I literally just stood there for an hour. From 9am until 12.30pm I simply stood collecting patient records from a box and adding them to a different pile, slowly losing the will to live. I had a half hour lunch break and then back to it - picking up papers, moving them onto other papers - bearing in mind that even THIS is few and far between, the majority of the time I'm literally just stood there WAITING for the bloody papers to arrive in the box for me to sort. I remember looking at my watch and it was 2.30pm and I thought to myself I just could not do that for another 3.5 hours. I really couldn't. It's mind numbing.
The staff are lovely and they have been trying to find things for me to do but even they struggle to find stuff to do. I'm due a 10 hour shift of it tomorrow and it's making me feel depressed jut thinking about it.
I only have 2 weeks left but it's going to be the longest two weeks of my life I think. AIBU to think this is an utterly shit first placement? I know I'm lucky to have got into uni etc in the first place but I am really struggling. One day I went into the toilet and played on my phone for 10 minutes as nobody was about and there was literally nothing to do. I came out after 10 minutes, still nobody about. I went back in and played on it for another 10 minutes - nobody even noticed I'd gone

Can you not request to shadow a member of staff?

You are right, it is a shit placement. Why have you put up with it for 4 weeks? Do you have a supervisor or someone you can talk to about it?

The members of staff are doing the same thing TeaCup. Just stood shifting papers or slagging each other off. Even the qualifies have nothing to do. I have on occasion stood there thinking "well, this is one easy way to make £21k a year" but in all honesty - I'd rather be stressed up to the eyeballs in A&E actually DOING something.

It sounds grim but at least you are getting this one out of the way early, presume everyone will have to do outpatients at some point?

Can you go out in the waiting area and see if there is an old lady waiting on her own - I am sure it would make her day to have a chat and would pass some time for you.

Stick it out, eyes on the prize an all that!

I have spoken to my mentor and she agrees it's a shit situation. She's even taken to sending me off to other departments for "day trips" to get some proper experience but that has only happened twice. She does try and she's absolutely lovely - if I could have asked for a mentor, I would have chosen her but her hands are tied as this is HER job. I've had qualified nurses say to me "it's shit but it pays the bills" or "I don't mind it here, I mean - you couldn't get an easier job really" but to me, this isn't nursing. But then I hate to be a whinge and I swore to myself I'd make the best of every situation but there is no good side to this unless you enjoy standing around doing nothing.

Maybe you could fill out one of those NHS suggestion forms on 'how to save costs' and send it off? Sounds like everyone's wasting their time and tax-payers' money.

Hmm, well its all part of finding out every aspect of nursing isnt it.
You can tick that one off as maybe not where you would eventually like to work!
Tbh when you do hit the wards and critical areas, your feet wont touch the ground so brace yourself.

Never the less, can you not take some study in to do? Hve you not got any academic work to be ploughing on with?

Additionally, if you are going to have feedback from the placement, just take care that you havent given a bad impression and that you were defo NOT noticed as disapearing to play on your phone, it is generally frowned upon to have a phone on in a clinical area.

Some areas are..it has to be said...completely mind numbingly tedious, suck it up cupcake, and crack on...thats my advice

Make some phone calls to different departments in the hospital see if they will take you for a shift/few hours. This is what I did when on a ten week hv placement where I was expected to sit on a chair in someones house/in a clinic not speaking or getting involved with anything. I would have died of boredom or quit the course otherwise

The academic work is another sour point. We're supposed to be reflecting on stuff that happens week by week. The most interesting thing that happened to me last week is that the records all fell off the trolley and I spent 10 minutes picking them up. The fact that I was glad it happened so it gave me something to do says a lot.

The first week I didn't have my phone on me at all but then I noticed all the nurses disapearing into the records room at certain points - I joined them one day to find they were all showing photos on facebook to each other and posting statuses etc. I decided to take mine in and keep it in my pocket but didn't actually start faffing about on it until I really lost the will to live week 3.

see what you mean, if every one else is doing it, then why not.

When i trained 100 years ago, we had to do 13 week placements....can you imagine that on there!
Luckily back then we were counted into the nursing numbers and had to do what the qualified nurses do, so i could always find something.
Feel your pain, but my advice is still to suck it up and crack on...two weeks to go, good luck x

Why not ask if you can go in with patients to their consultations ? Follow them through their 'journey' with the department ?
Sounds like the staff aren't really doing their job if they just move records around - surely they are supposed to be supporting the patients ?

When you say 'all the nurses' how many are you talking about. I'm imagining a clinic with 5 nurses with absolutely nothing to do... are some of them busy?

And why do you shift records? Why don't they go straight to where they should be?

Aren't there any patients???

would you be able to take your books in and use the time for studying?

I do sometimes sit in consultations which at first was interesting but after 4 weeks of the same thing even that has lost it's appeal (as all the patients are there for the same thing). I can't even make cups of tea or offer refreshments for the patients as the volunteers do that and go off in a huff if anyone does their job.
There are around 5 qualified nurses and a million a lot of auxilaries all fighting over the few jobs that there to do. Most of the jobs involve calling someone which even if I do shadow - involves me stood there listening to one side of a conversation. It's pointless.

It sounds crap but it will be over soon and hopefully the placements will get a bit more interesting.

I've been a nurse 10 years and quite like the sound of shuffling files in an outpatients department My job is a lot more intense and giving me a lot of stress at the moment.

I can see when you are starting out you want to get stuck in and it can be frustrating. My first placement for mental health nursing was in a support house which didn't even have nurses working there I used to get to accompany the residents to the cinemnot not a lot of opportunity and practice my skills and didn't do much to prepare me for what I do now but the placements get better ime.

You need to take it upon yourself to find things to do. Read some patients notes or ring places to see if you can go for a few hours/days to see what they get upto. You need to do a community placement during your training; is this it? Or will you have to do a proper community palcement too like district nursing? I think you need to talk to your personal tutor at university about how you feel like it isn't teaching you anything about nursing, but at the same time, it is really important to remember that your 3 years of training is one big, long, extended job interview. If you stand around literally doing nothing as you describe, people may percieve this as being lazy. You can ALWAYS find something to do. Read some notes, make some beds, talk to some patients, follow the house keeper, follow a nurse, floow an HCA. Show an interest. And don't give up because of one sh*t placement. If every student nurse did that, no one would qualify!

But I'm so jealous of the others that have these great placements. One friend was telling me she's taken male and female catheters out, dressed wounds, done loads of injections, done admissions - she asked me what I'd done and there was nothing I could tell her. I'm quite down about it, I'm really trying to make the most of it, all the staff keep saying "oh you'll never get this opportunity to work at such pace again" and I think "I bloody hope not cos it would have been a hell of a lot easier to train to be a secretary if that's what I wanted to do".

I get bored really, really easily which is one of the reasons I came in to nursing in the first place and I remember thinking before the placements were handed out that my worst fear would be being sent to somewhere where I was stood around doing nothing all day. And it happened

There are no beds. The waiting area is seen to by the cleaners and volunteers and they frown upon anyone else that tries to do their job. I have read patient notes but then the OCD nurse that "Looks after" the record gets noticeably anxious that I'm messing up her drawers. I really have shown an interest, I follow people around and then get sarcky comments that the nurses have acquired "shadows" and I feel like I'm being laughed at. I'd never give up but I'm feeling like I'm really, really being tested here and I'm struggling.

So...where do you go after this placement?

What a nightmare. Much as I love paperwork (born bureaucrat, me), this would drive me nuts.

Could you do some sort of audit of the files, or the DNAs or something? Would your mentor help set that up?

Or could you ask to do a patient survey? Maybe the PALS team would bite your arm off to do that - could it even be the basis of your dissertation? Or you could write it up for a journal, giving you a shiny for your CV? Something about the patient pathway they follow - especially good to research something where all the patients do the same thing? Means you could chat to the patients legitimately, anyway :)

Oh god I remember a similar placement years ago when I was nursing.

Chin up, get on with it, it will soon be over.

Arrange some spoke placements.

See if you can gain any management knowledge, off duty, skill mix, general running of the unit?

I would echo what someone else said up thread. Try to be proactive. I have spent my life being reactive in some work situations and only realise now (at 52) that it is not the way to get ahead. If it really is such a colossal waste of time, can you not ask to speak to the head of the department to talk about ways of improving it?

It's only another 2 weeks and it will soon pass, but, at least you have this one out of the way. It is concerning that there seem to be so many staff who have no work to do - bad NHS management ??