To think Nursing is one of the hardest degrees?

[UndertheCedartree]

I did a nursing degree as a 2nd degree as a mature student. I actually felt sorry for the 18 year olds starting it as they didn't get the usual Uni experience. No Freshers - as we'd already started a few weeks before and were in back to back lectures/classes. Social life was limited due to work load and placements with early starts and long hours.

I found it very stressful. Long hours in Uni due to hours needed to pass the professional qualification. Half the time spent working full time while having to write assignments and study for exams. Also the OSCEs (practical exam) and VIVAs (oral exam) that were so different to anything I'd done before.

So AIBU than Nursing is one of the hardest degrees?

I've been qualified for 15 years now and despite my knowledge and experience I honestly don't think I could finish it nowadays!

Underthecedartree, we may mean different things by research.

Many nurses are excellent researchers and the best people to be doing a masters or PhD and so on. But the average research should not be conducting research in the academic sense. Not because they are not capable, but because it would be an ethical nightmare for that many people to be carrying out research on or around patients.

Nurse aneasthetist is an american specialism is it not?

The title is American yes, and being phased in here, but there are many advanced practice nurses working in anaesthesia/ emergency care working at band 8 and above. They are highly specialised jobs that require a very high level of education.

Sorry, the average nurse that should read.

A couple of weeks lectures followed by 30 hour week placements which change every 6-8 weeks. Shifts of all kinds to work round which ever mentor you're trying to work with (and then just before sign-off they go sick/take annual leave!)
3000 word essays to be handed in at the end of a placement which you should start before you start placement but you need base your essay on your placement so when do you start /finish?!
Lecturers and tutors unavailable the majority of the time for questions related to essays etc because they are in clinical practice.
Training/skill days after a night shift, that you're told you cannot do but your latest mentor only work on nights so... what can you do?
Student loans that don't cover your utility bills and rent so you have to work a further 20 hours a week, around placement shifts in jobs that... is available around your placement Rota.
Trying to meet your clinical skills/placement sign off targets by learning everything you can and being the new person so no clue where things are. Sometimes if you're really unlucky, your focus on learning is deemed as "too posh to wash" because you needed to cover catheter care or manage one bay/patient right at that moment that they were short staffed.
Trying to fit in family/friend meet ups, birthdays, weddings etc when you get a fortnight off the week before schools break up for Christmas and another fortnight off before schools break up for summer holidays.
Yeah... it was superb.

@1forsorrow you have a massive chip on your shoulder and are extrapolating your experience to suggest many ANPs are better than GPs and being dismissive of the huge amounts of knowledge GPs have.

Anyone can come up with a single experience and consequently say that must be so judged by that single episode.

Fact is medical degrees cover much much more subject matter than a nursing degree and to a far deeper level. It would be ridiculous to suggest otherwise.

All doctors then go on to higher training in their chosen speciality and many more professional exams which usually takes 5-10 years more study after the initial 5-6 year degree. It is relentless and the shifts and hours are every bit as tough as a nursing degree. Added to which the responsibility is higher- sorry but it just is.

But hold the front page, doctors still miss some diagnoses and yup some are rude and dismissive. Doesn’t mean many more aren’t amazing. Many diagnoses evolve and seeing a GP twice and then a nurse may mean the situation has changed or more info has been gathered. Or it may mean the nurse thought of something the GP didn’t. Hurrah for the team hey?

OP hard is subjective. My hard will be different to your hard and different again to the next person’s.
Yes a nursing degree is different to most pure academic subjects in that the student is expected to undertake placements that are akin to working, alongside the more usual lectures and assignments.
Same for medicine, vets, social work etc.

Not sure what you were wanting to gain here really but if it was an appreciation that nurses have to work hard to qualify then yes we all agree.

because it would be an ethical nightmare for that many people to be carrying out research on or around patients.

On, maybe yes, but why would research conducted about patients by nurses with the academic credentials to do so be any more of an ethical nightmare than any other academics doing research on the same issues?

It wouldn’t be. Nurses would be the best people to do research degrees to go on to be researchers in those areas, and to go into academia in those areas.

But that doesn’t mean that all nurses should be conducting research, anymore than all teachers, lawyers or engineers should do.

I’m a nurse and work now in higher education. Yes it is a hard degree - but it’s a hard job too. I also teach medical students and their required level of knowledge is probably 4 times what a student nurse needs to know. Granted medical students don’t have the placements nursing students do.

You are right about the full time timetable to meet NMC requirements but a “good” uni will still offer a good social life.

And re the exams - what you have written suggests to me a good spread of types of summative assessment which is good for students - just because you hadn’t experienced it in your maths degree doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing.

My DD is a 2nd year Medic. She says how hard the nurses have it, basically having a full time, unpaid job on the wards whilst also studying. They don't get Uni holidays so can't earn money (thankfully their bursary is coming back). She thinks nurses are aka big !

Or even amazing 😂

Fact is medical degrees cover much much more subject matter than a nursing degree and to a far deeper level. It would be ridiculous to suggest otherwise.

Who has suggested otherwise? Doctors study for much longer, of course it is to a deeper level.

I was reading an article yesterday about a shift towards introducing 4 year nursing degrees that lead to dual MH/ adult nursing. I wish I had had the chance to do that - the cross over between adult and MH is huge, we have many patients on general wards with significant MH issues that we are not trained on how to deal with, and MH nurses in my trust are almost non existent so we have no proper back up. Thankfully, I am older and know a fair bit about MH conditions, but I feel for the younger students who have not come across things such as psychosis and significant self harm before. None of that has been covered in our degree.

Doggybiccys, do you think there are things universities and hospitals could do to make the courses less stressful?

She thinks nurses are aka big !

Ha - let her know we think medics are fab too! They must see some awful things on a daily basis, and cope amazingly.

Time intensive, definitely (like a lot of health/medical.degrees).

But there are a lot of more academically challenging degrees.

I was reading an article yesterday about a shift towards introducing 4 year nursing degrees that lead to dual MH/ adult nursing. I wish I had had the chance to do that - the cross over between adult and MH is huge, we have many patients on general wards with significant MH issues that we are not trained on how to deal with, and MH nurses in my trust are almost non existent so we have no proper back up. Thankfully, I am older and know a fair bit about MH conditions, but I feel for the younger students who have not come across things such as psychosis and significant self harm before. None of that has been covered in our degree.

I would support this so much as long as mental health was given as much emphasis as physical. I've been shocked at the attitude of a fair number of adult nurses I've encountered who just dismiss my patients as one of "our lot". I'm the first to put my hands up and admit the gals in my knowledge around physical health and have done post grad modules to remedy this but some adult nurses I've encountered just dont seem to care about mental health... thankfully not all though.

do you think there are things universities and hospitals could do to make the courses less stressful?

I know you're not asking me .. (but I'm enjoying this procrastination from my sodding dissertation!) but yes -there are so many things they could do. Hospitals in terms of providing better placements, mentors that actually want to be one (and not just doing it as a requirement to progress to band 6) as IME this type, cannot be bothered to help students and treat them as a nuisance. Giving the decent mentors time to actually spend with their students to help them progress. Better consideration of placement hours for those with family/ carer responsibilities. We all get told we have to do 12.5 hours/ nights etc as we will have to when we qualify, but that is not true - many of us will choose community or flexi/ part time roles when we qualify so why should we not have that option if needed as a student.

Universities - better student support, better help with funding, better course structure.

Doggybiccys, do you think there are things universities and hospitals could do to make the courses less stressful?

Listen to us on the wards for a start. Put local uni does 6 week placements in first year. I'm sick of feeding back that our unit (low secure forensic services) needs removing from first year placements. 6 weeks is just not enough time to get any benefit from this type of environment. It takes 2 weeks to be fully key inducted. It's a waste of our time and a waste of the students time. Students that come 10+ weeks give us overwhelmingly positive feedback. Those that come for less tends to be negative. You get first year students panicking and asking for days in other areas to gain proficiences that theyve no chance of getting in our unit.

I also question some of the proficiences. Stoma care and catheter care seem to have been added recently... highly unlikely you'll come across either in mental health (had 1 catheter in 6 years here and it was a fleeting visit) yet they havent had an adult placementrto help them.achieve this proficiences so they then panic. Thankfully the district nurses are amazing in our trust and set aside 1 day each week for mental health students to get their proficiences.

Do the hospitals and university communicate well Tuesday, or does it feel like two separate roles?

I did a midwifery degree as a single parent. It was relentless. I actually found I was more academic than I thought, and I could pull in decent grades, but the time constraints meant I often handed in work that was not the best I could do as it was done in every bit of crammed in time I could manage, often when I was keep deprived between shifts.
What I found the hardest was being constantly assessed. On placement, then back in uni. There was no let up and that was exhausting.

*sleep deprived

Better consideration of placement hours for those with family/ carer responsibilities. We all get told we have to do 12.5 hours/ nights etc as we will have to when we qualify, but that is not true - many of us will choose community or flexi/ part time roles when we qualify so why should we not have that option if needed as a student.

In this respect I think I'm a pretty good mentor. I tell all my students to never do weekends or nights unless they need to. All the good teaching opportunities tend to happen during the week anyway. I let them set their own rota too as long as they meet the minimum hours with mentor (which I believe has changed now that mentors are no more???cant remember off the top of my head).

I didn’t ask any questions @UndertheCedartree.

You clearly are convinced that your opinion is correct, despite having only had one other degree to compare it to. I only have one degree myself so certainly cannot comment on how hard anyone else’s degree is or was in comparison. I agree that nurses work extremely hard and seem to have to cram a lot of training into a comparatively short time.

Clearly what you want though is for everyone to agree with you so well done you, you’ve done the hardest degree in the world, give yourself a 🏅

I'm a rgn. Been a nurse 7.5 years yr1 and 3 was easy yr2 was hard. Placement was okay made me grow up. I had my daughter in my 2nd year had 6 month of and joined another intake I did uni placement child and a part time job. Xx

Sorry, but I disagree (and I'm a nurse). The course involves more contact hours than most but it isn't academically harder, no where near.