Reflection on curating @nursingSUni by Emilie

Week beginning 9/10/17 @EmiliePrattSTN

I have used twitter for a while, but have only recently set up an account specifically for my student nursing journey. I created one because I wanted to collect followers especially of fellow students/nurses/PEFs/HCAs to discuss issues with and support each other using this form of social media. Having recently joined a Facebook group ‘Student Nurse Journeys & Beyond’, I have discovered the power of social media to get advice and feel like you are not quite as alone as you think you might be. I was a bit apprehensive to curate as I wasn’t sure what topics to cover or whether to pick a specific theme. The start of my week fell on National Mental Health day so this was a good opportunity to ask other tweeters their opinions on dual nursing training, as I am particularly interested in the psychological aspect of nursing. I also took the opportunity to join the @WeNurses chat on 12/10/17, which focused on resilience. This theme tied in quite nicely with mental health so I was happy to get involved and share my thoughts. I enjoyed being a contributor to and a part of the chat as I find it useful to get others opinions and thoughts. It also got me thinking more about what does resilience mean to me and if nurses are expected to behave in a certain way. I enjoyed hearing from other students and how their placements were going so I took the opportunity to ask followers what their favourite placement was, as I had found the ones you are apprehensive about can often turn out to be amazing. To add a bit of fun I also asked what were followers favourite patient jokes they have heard a million times, it gave me a few laughs to hear others stories!

Overall, I really did enjoy my time curating the account and it has helped me gain confidence and believe that my opinions are important too. It also showed me that we are all so well supported, by University staff, other students, the practice education facilitators (PEFs) and mentors, on this student nursing journey.

Sharing research through social media: the peripheral venous catheters story from Cochrane UK

#whywedoresearch how to disseminate good evidence to enhance practice via the medium of a Tweetchat with experts in the field and practitioners in the field

The HARTS ... of the possible

By Sarah Chapman

Knowledge Broker at Cochrane UK

@SarahChapman30

Earlier this year, a group from the HARTSofthepossible team met here in Oxford to reflect on our progress and to plan what was needed next. We came up with a Rainbow Prism Model to show the three areas of our work: sharing research through social media; using social media for research and innovation; and research about how social media works. At the centre of all of these is the need to demonstrate impact. You can read more in this blog

This post follows the template we set out during that meeting:

We agreed we would start with what we know, by sharing and learning from some past examples of doing each of these things. So I’m starting with an example of sharing research through social media, from Cochrane UK.

Brief synopsis

We used social media to share a newly updated Cochrane…

View original post 1,517 more words

The week I found out 140 characters is not a lot to work with…by @NurMilenkovic

I had the great opportunity to curate the @nursingSU twitter account for a week (07.11.16 – 13.11.16). I thought it would be something really easy and simple to do, you know – browse twitter like I already do with my own social media. Boy, was I wrong! The twitter account has quite the following and vast amounts of notifications came with it. I was far from prepared for that bit, although I did feel very popular for a week! During my time as curator, I was on my first week of placement and was lucky that I worked 8:00 till 16:00, so my “twitter times” corresponded quite nicely with my bus journey, which made the dreary, rainy, coffee-deprived morning so much more enjoyable. I am fairly new to twitter, having started an account purely to be able to participate in a day out that my module (@ICYPN) in year one had organised. I had always understood that it was a sort of micro-blogging, where you could say what was on your mind at that moment and share it with the world. I was also aware of the 140-character limit. What I was not aware was my stubbornness not to use shorthand or abbreviations, which meant that half my time was spent trying to essentially manage a word count. As the week went on, I think I improved at getting straight to the point, and using the various options available on the site (retweeting, quoting, and simple replying to tweets), who knows, this might be a skill that may come in use in documentation in nursing notes, staff don’t have the time to write a paragraph per entry right? During the week, I was also able to have some very interesting conversations with people from around the country, I found out that London PAD documents do not have a section to take into account reasonable adjustments of the students, and that nurses nation-wide were ready to get up in arms to defend their profession when belittled and told they should “stay practical” rather than pursue PhDs. I found it difficult to get students to engage with the account on a regular basis, but I definitely got plenty of input from staff nurses, health care assistants, WeNurses accounts, and PEFs. I think my favourite discussion was during a #NurChat on the student and mentor relationship (took place on 8.11.16). Despite forgetting to include the hashtag in half of my comments during the chat, I was able to gain some great insight on what both students and mentors expect from the relationship – Students want assistance and guidance in both skills and knowledge about the placement, mentors would like the student to have done at least some background reading about their placement rather than showing up completely green. @NurChat has created a timeline of the chat, which I strongly urge you to have a look at as there were some great tips. Finally, I thought that during my time as curator, I would add a small personal touch with #ClosingThoughts, partially to summarise the most important thing I learnt that day either on placement or during my tweeting, and partially to simply “log off”.

And so, my #ClosingThoughts for this experience? 140 characters more than enough to get a message across, you just need to be smart about how you use them.

Nur Milenkovic

‘Not only have I gained confidence, I’ve had fun’ by @lynseymarieCYP

A reflection on curating @nursingSUni by student nurse @lynseymarieCYP

Before curating the nursing Twitter account, I was very nervous. I’ve tweeted and had my personal account for a while, and during my first year of the course I created a professional account. I didn’t really know what to tweet. I started off with tweeting about lectures and excitement about placement and other tweets from professionals. Tweeting on the School’s account seemed very daunting to me as there was a large audience, majority professional and I did not want to ‘mess up’ or seem like I did not know what I was doing. Having such a wide audience of active users was the best as it allowed voices to be heard, discussions to be made, learning to be shared.

Working as a trio as well helped me as I felt there was not as much pressure in terms of what to tweet and being on my own. We were able to build on what was said before, a topic that we could continue discussions on and voice questions and thoughts we felt were important and wanted to share with the community, which was particularly helpful during the Safeguarding Workshop we had as it allowed us to share key points/views we felt everyone should be aware of.

Over the week I felt that I had grown in confidence. I enjoyed all the opinions and discussions being shared as it allowed me to learn more and see how social media is an outlet that we can use in a positive way. As well as this it allows professional contacts to grow, updates on new articles and research being released, conferences to be announced among so many other things. I understand the role that it plays in supporting us all and feel this is something that I want to do again at some point in the future.

Not only have I gained confidence, I’ve had fun and been able to participate and help create good discussion (all whilst being able to add something to my CV). I would recommend it to anyone and everyone!

A winning poem by student nurse @shaunashooe

This poem was penned by student children’s nurse Shauna Gracey. It was her application to volunteer on the Destination Florida trip. Destination Florida is a charity that takes children with chronic or terminal illness to Orlando Florida for the trip of a lifetime. Here at Salford University we are very proud to say that for many years now we have had student nurses volunteer their time & energy on this trip. Lots of students apply to volunteer, but not all get chosen. I think you’ll agree that the creativity and passion in this winning application shines through 🙂

A dream is a wish your heart makes, 
Destination Florida is what it takes, 
for magic, sunshine and laughter in the sun, 
for children and their famillies to have some fun!

A little about me, you should know, For Florida is the place I love to go!
A carer at heart, a student today, for me this opportunity is perfect I say.

Why do I want to go you ask? To help and care for others-such a worthy task!
To experience the trip that will change their lives, hopefully all round I shall be giving high fives!

I want to care for the children-their families too, 
to learn about their conditions-to name but a few. 
To take away the pain that illness’ can bring, 
I’ll laugh and joke and even sing!

As a student its vital to remember the 6 C’s, 
for this ensures that I am the bee’s knees! 
Caring, courageous and competent today, 
committed, compassionate & communication I say! 
 
Hardworking, patient and a listener-that’s me! 
a trier, a doer  the best I can be.

Volunteer of the year for young people in the past, 
a good reputation that appears to have last! 
 
high achiever, believer that nursing’s the way, 
to change children’s lives even just for one day. 
To form therapeutic relationships to make a change 
to work with children from a different age range!

A niece, a nephew the apple of my eye, 
they’ve changed my life-I simply cannot lie! 
the love and care I always show, 
for me as a person they’ve helped me grow.

I hope to enlighten the lives of everyone on the trip, 
to reduce the load that parents often grip, 
to be a part of a team-there best there can be 
I really hope you choose to pick me!

I understand the struggle that illness’ can bring, 
the devastating effects-such a horrible thing. 
I’ve worked on wards, the community too 
my experience is expanding-it’s definitely grew!

In placement I’ve enjoyed the daily contact, 
the anatomy & physiology-such an interesting fact! 
It’s finally time to put my practice into place, 
the daily conditions that I’ve had to face.

Not only a believer that being a nurse is the best, 
for me academically I’ve passed the test, 
A first in my grades I’ve achieved so far, 
a standard I’ve set to raise the bar!

I hope to experience the life that children and families face, 
such an honourable role and such a fast pace, 
to hopefully make a difference and bring a smile, 
to help these children id run a mile!

Raising money for children, I’ve done before, 
the great north run in September-hard work galore! 
Tommy’s charity I’ve fundraised for-a worthy cause, 
for premature babies to open some doors!  
 
For me a charity, close to my heart, 
for I was premature which sets me apart! 
2lb 4 and 27 weeks born, 
for the parents I cherish they were torn! 
 
Its paved the journey I am on today, 
as I want to make a difference and am here to say, 
ive worked so hard to be where I am, 
the knowledge and work I’ve had to cram.

So please consider me, for the trip of a life, 
to make a difference today for my age im still rife! 
to choose me today, you won’t regret, 
the journeys ahead, get ready, set! 
 
I hope you take into account the hard work I have done, 
to write a poem for me has been such great fun, 
so Shauna Gracey- please consider me this time 
as its been challenging and hard to make everything rhyme!

Sure, you’ll make a mistake once in a while… by @LukiKnowsBest

This is a bit delayed from my week curating as I’ve had my head in books and articles revising for my upcoming exam.

I’ve used Twitter in a personal capacity since January 2009 and am a big proponent of social media being a big part of social change and having being introduced to the network that nurses have started building across social media in my first year. Hearing how much passion @levylass and @wlasinclair talk about how social media can change nursing and the way in which is can assist teaching inspired me to get more involved in it. Don’t shy away from social media for fear of doing wrong. Sure, you’ll make a mistake once in a while; that’s how you learn and you sure as hell won’t make it twice.

Before curating the account, I started exploring the community @WeNurses and started getting involved in the tweet chats that they hold. I learned that they’re a fantastic opportunity to not only be social with nurses and other practitioners I wouldn’t normally be able to come into contact with but to share resources and evidence based best practice in order to build my own knowledge. Following this I was happy to volunteer for the WeGetTogether (#WGT16) as a student volunteer and had a wonderful day talking with different practitioners who all had the same passion for social media and healthcare. During my curation, I made specific time to be involved in the tweet chat held by @Wenurses on Reflection and was able to discuss and share my thoughts and resources to others. I was particularly happy that I got positive feedback on my contributions sharing simple tips and models of reflection I use and make get some new followers from this chat.

My week was centred around my first branch specific model and was very excited to share my passion for mental health whilst using the account. I believe mental health and mental health nursing is unfairly stigmatised by not only the public but by other nurses/students as well. When in the start of the year discussing which branch we were from and disclosing that I was doing mental health it brought about comments such as “that’s scary, don’t the patients all attack you” and similar comments along the same theme. It’d be untrue to say that mental health clients are not going to become aggressive/violent but the same could be said of any patient. Any aggression stems from their own anxiety and fear reacting to their illness in the same way that someone with a physical illness reacts to their pain. As student nurses we owe mental health service users exactly the same compassion and care that we would offer a patient who is suffering from a physical illness but sadly this is not always the case. I’d hope, in some small way, that discussing mental health themes and addressing and challenging this stigma through tweeting from the @nursingsuni account and my own that it can in some way bring about a change even in a few people’s minds.

I’ll leave you with a quick thank you to Wendy, Moira and Neil for their support and a favourite quote of mine from Margaret Mead

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

A warm welcome to our guest curator @clarentina

Clare has volunteered to curate our @nursingSUni twitter account for the week commencing 23rd May 2016. We love having guest curators to build our networks. Here’s a little bit about @clarentina 

I am a second and final year student living in South London. Sound a bit weird? Let me explain. I am one of a small bunch of student nurses who are studying nursing after completing a first degree. I graduated from the University of Manchester (@OfficialUoM) in Cell Biology in 2009 and spent four years working for Anthony Nolan (@anthonynolan) helping to match donors with patients in need of a bone marrow transplant. After an amazing four years I decided I wanted to play a more frontline role and applied for nursing. I started my PgDip Adult Nursing at @lsbu_hsc in 2014 and am due to graduate in September 2016- hoping to take up a newly qualified nurse post at @uclh.

I love nursing but I have also seen plenty of ‘the other side’ as I live with type 1 diabetes. I am routinely cared for by fantastic staff who inspire me for my future career. Type 1 diabetes makes working on the ward a bit tricky, but I muddle through. As such, I am interested in patients living with long-term conditions and co-write a blog, diabeticshambles.org. When I’m not nursing, I love running, and am trying to run a mile every day in 2016. How that fits in with long days remains to be seen!

The first day of my curation of the Twitter account will be the first day of my final placement so wish me luck! I’m looking forward to chatting to other student nurses around the country.

My week curating @nursingSUni by @stu_vichowson

My week curating @nursingSUni by Student Nurse Victoria Howson I have used Twitter for a few years personally, but never really used used it to contect with people other than my family or close friends. When I started my Nursing degree in September 2014, I remember my Fitness to Practice lecture and how to use social media professionally and I also remember the lecturer telling us about how Twitter is a good way to connect with other professionals in the Nursing world and other health care professionals. It was after this lecture that I created my student Twitter account @stu_vichowson and I haven’t turned back since!

Twitter is such an excellent way to connect with other students and lecturers that help provide support to you throughout your training and then onto your career. There are also a number of professionals in the Twitter world that can provide you with support and useful information that can help you with your career. @WeNurses encourage you to interact and get involved in their live chats which are a brilliant way to learn and build up your confidence with Twitter and they make you feel part of a big Nursing family. I unfortunately missed the majority of the @WeNurses chat during my week as I had my head stuck in books and journal articles revising for my upcoming OSCE, but even though I do have my assessment fast approaching I felt very well supported during my time curating by the lovely lecturers behind the @nursingSUni Twitter account.

I would definitely recommend other students to get involved and help out curating the account as it has definitely improved my confidence with using Twitter professionally. Anyone who is a bit nervous or new to Twitter should definitely give it a go as there is an excellent support network!

I will definitely be back and tweeting from the account again hopefully soon! I’ve now made it one of my PDP goals!

Thanks for everything!

We’re trying something new here @NursingSUni ….again and connecting with our Midwifery students

We have been running @NursingSUni here in the School of Nursing, Midwifery, Social Work & Social Sciences since January 2014 and it has predominantly been about enhancing the student experience. Recently a twitter exchange took place where a student saw the tweet we sent out from this account asking “any @SalfordUni staff or students want to develop your twitter skills? curate this account for 1 week and we’ll guide & support you;-)”. We do this on a regular basis and sometimes we are overwhelmed by the responses and can usually plan a rota of curation a month or two in advance. At other times you can think of the image of tumbleweeds, and there fewer responses. But that’s life and usually, Wendy, Neil and myself are able to take the reins so that we maintain and sustain the relationships we have made with our followers.

But this time Georgia Allan, @rai_allan an undergraduate midwifery student decided to respond and tweet that she would be interested in doing this. Wendy and I both replied almost immediately and asked her when she would like to take charge. That’s the beauty of this account, we are always waiting in the wings to ensure there is a fairly quick response to students or others who tweet us. I don’t think either of us expected her to say next week, ie the week commencing Monday 28th March 2016 but she did and she will be taking the reins for the whole week. Learning and sharing with established and new followers of the account. We welcome this venture with midwifery colleagues and of course midwifery students, as there are always new ways of learning and working together across other fields of practice that we can embrace.

Please offer her your support and encouragement @levylass

From Salford to Sweden – undertaking an Erasmus international placement and reaping the benefits for my future career. By Emma Harvey. Sept 13 MA Nursing @emmaharveyhk

For my elective placement this year, I engaged in an international exchange to Linköping University, Sweden. The process started a long time before I boarded the plane but it encouraged me to obtain information about the country and the healthcare system, as well as engage in a written application and interview and organise my time with the University, skills that I will take with me through my nursing career. On arrival in Linköping – a small town south of Stockholm – I was met and greeted by my peer student and her mother, who settled me into my accommodation and were available throughout my stay. Which really emphasised to me how good Sweden are at hosting visitors. Although nerve wracking and slightly lost in the first few days, I quickly acclimatised and bought a second hand bike and met other exchange students from all faculties.

After a week’s induction, where we had three-hour Swedish lessons every afternoon, I engaged in a 5-week theory course called Interdisciplinary Perspectives of Rehabilitation. In the UK most of our healthcare systems work on a multidisciplinary approach, so it was interesting to see the differences in Sweden. It appeared to be a more superior approach with different professions working much more cohesively together. We attended a neuro-rehabilitation ward where we shadowed different members of the interdisciplinary team on each visit. As a mental health student nurse, I was able to see a lot of things I don’t experience in my placements in the UK. However, the most important thing I took from this was the emphasis on patient care and their use of goal setting. For example, a speech therapist would have a pre-meeting with the patient before they had their multidisciplinary meeting. In this meeting, which took place every three weeks, they would devise goals with the patient, who would decide what was most important to them in their recovery and a copy of their goals were kept in their documents so that the whole team were aware of them.

I then completed a five-week placement with a community psychiatric team. The staff made a big effort to introduce me to clients who were willing to speak English to me or translate when it was appropriate. I really enjoyed this placement as it enabled me to gain a better understanding of Swedish lifestyle and interact with local people in their community. In Sweden, a majority of psychiatric community patients lived in serviced accommodations, some had their own apartments and support was available when needed and others had more structured support throughout the day. The set-up of the supported accommodation encouraged independence and social inclusion within the community. From conversations with the community psychiatric team, it also reduced hospital admissions and benefitted clients in crisis as staff in the serviced accommodation were able to alert the community nursing staff in a timely manner in order to increase support.

Additionally, I was able to spend time with the physical health community nurses for a couple of shifts. One was a day shift in which we cycled around the town to visits on electric bicycles. I thought this was a great, being outdoors and seeing the town whilst working was a real pleasure. It links in nicely with the Swedish lifestyle in that they appear to be very active, but also promoted a healthy lifestyle through leading by example. The second shift I did was a night shift, where a team of community nurses work 16.00 – 05.00. They had a number of patients on their books which they would attend to and then they would be available for emergency calls, which could be physical or mental health needs. The nurses would assess the patient and then either provide interventions themselves or refer them for an ambulance. I found this interesting as community care was provided almost 24 hours a day and thus reducing the pressure on emergency care services.

My final placement experience was one week on a paediatric ward. I thoroughly enjoyed this, as I developed a good understanding of children and young people’s nursing which I would have otherwise never got in the UK. I spent two days in a neonatal ward, and the rest of my time in children’s emergency and the general paediatric ward. Although it was only a brief amount of time I was able to experience some aspects of the role of a paediatric nurse, which I consider to be an important to my training.

Finally, my time undertaking an international placement in Sweden was not just work. I was able to participate in trips and tours run by the university and that I planned with new friends. I attended my first ‘Swedish Sittning’ – a typical Swedish dinner party, cycled to lakes, visited the ‘old towns’, learnt Swedish, played volleyball, had plenty of Fika, and many other things. I was also lucky enough to go to Stockholm, Gothenburg, Copenhagen and Helsinki. The experience was enriching for my nursing career, my education and for me as a person. It pushed me out of my comfort zone, allowed me to travel, learn new things, and meet new people.

 

 

It was one of the best things I have ever done and I will cherish my time in Sweden forever.