Child in hospital

[AngelaBU]

I work at Bournemouth University in the School of Health and Social Care where we have a Children & young Peoples nursing degree. Im looking for a parent of a child who has been admitted to hospital, either for planned or emergency surgery, to come and talk to students about their experiences. We want students to understand the stress this may have on parents and how best nurses can support them and help them cope. Students learn nursing theory, but the real life experience adds so much value to their training. You dont have to have teaching skills the session can be very informal. If you are interested to hear more, please respond!

Hi there, I am happy to help, have 2 boys and both have had ops and have experience of 3 different hospitals in the area. Let me know what you need me to do and when you need me, if still required.

Hello Cim10
Thank you for your message. One other person has responded and I've put her in touch with the lecturer. Would you be able to tell me some details i.e. what the ops were? The sessions with the students won't be until next term now, but we're hoping to start planning now really. The content and structure of the session will depend on what you're happy with and what the lecturer would like the students to gain from the session. Just to let you know, anything you do for us at the University; we are able to pay travel expenses in cash on the day and then a £10/hour payment for your time. I look forward to hearing from you.

Hi there. My one little one went through the process of having a ganglion removed from his hand aged 2 1/2 (Poole hospital) and then having grommets put in his ears 4 years (Nuffield). My other child had eye surgery aged 10 years (Bournemouth hospital) all were planned but all were completely different experiences. I am happy to work with whatever it is you need from my experiences. As part of my job I currently give talks to support groups on eating to support the improvement of various conditions eg high blood pressure, so am pretty used to giving a talk to a number of people.

Hello! Thank you for this information. I will forward it to the nursing team and get back to you as soon as I hear from them.

Hi. My daughter who is 8 is about to have her fourth operation on 5 August. She was born with a cleft lip and palate. I know it's not the same as a child having an operation for a illness as such but it is still stressful.

She has had a cleft lip repair, cleft palate repair, grommets and is having an alveolar bone graft on 5 August. She was also due to have eye surgery which was cancelled when we had got as far as arriving on the operation day at hospital. She has been treated under 3 different hospitals. I would be okay talking to a small group but probably not a large group.

Hello Sunflower6, thank you for sharing this information. I will forward it to the nursing team - some are now on summer holidays so it may be a little while before I get a response, but I'm sure your experiences and views will be of interest to them. Thank you for being willing to talk to the students.

Hello again Sunflower6. Term has started now and most people are back! Would you still be interested in talking to students? We have a session next Monday 29th October, which is very short notice I know, but we could structure it as a question and answer session perhaps. There would be 25 students, so not too big a group. If you are interested, perhaps you could e-mail me [email protected]