Has it only been 49 days?

It has been 49 days since I officially completed my course and became a Registered Nurse. I have lost count of how many interviews and rejection letters I've received. It's better that way because if I had kept track, I'd just be depressed and disappointed. Not great that I have unrealistic expectations!

People have been telling me that it took them 4 - 8 months to gain full-time employment. That's a very distressing comment. A lot of people are surprised when I tell them I'm an RN who can't find a job. Especially when there are always talks about how in demand nurses are. I guess advertisers should be more specific - they want experienced nurses. How exactly are graduate nurses expected to gain experience when no one is willing to take us on and train us?! Organizations bring in foreign nurses on temporary visa who leave at the end of the day. What about nurses who want to gain the training and experience, but miss out because organizations want to take the easy way out? Are we expected to wake up with all the skills and knowledge one day?

No thanks to changes in migration requirements, I cannot lodge my application for permanent residency until I receive a positive skill assessment. What I - and the nice lady from the IMMI in Melbourne - cannot fathom is why nurses with a current WA registration need a skill assessment. The MODL list clearly lists Registered Nurse on its list. Not only that, skill assessments are taking longer than usual! It has changed from 6 - 8 weeks, to 12 - 14 weeks.

It's absolutely ridiculous. I shall stop here before I rupture a blood vessel from the hiccups of my life.

Signed,
Annoyed

Graduand

Four years has finally come to an end... I'm so glad it's over! Now, the exciting part of attending a graduation ceremony, and the moment my parents should be proud of - my walking across that stage, accepting that very, very expensive piece of paper ^.^

I officially became a Registered Nurse on the 9th of December 2009... Some time between 3.00pm and 6.00pm ;) Right now, I'm desperately banging on doors for a job. The Western Australian's Department of Health is not hiring people who are not Australian citizens or permanent residents. What a pile of crock... Ah well...

Anyways, back to the job hunt...

Just another day in November

Well, almost.

I was checking the mailbox, as usual, and I saw a huge enveloped addressed to me from the English Language Centre. I shrieked and practically ran into the house. I knew it would be my IELTS results. Half expecting to see something below the 7.0 band, I almost fainted when I saw this:



On the 17th, I attended a peripheral intravenous cannulation course, and I am now proud to announce that I am cannulation competent. Trust me, you don't want anyone else but me to cannulate you ;)

At 12.15pm, I boarded a bus. Fell asleep by 12.35pm... Reached my destination at 1.40pm... What a bus ride!!! I swear the bus driver was getting worried about me LOL... I boarded a different bus to get to the shopping center. By that time, I was still drowsy from my glorious nap... I was wondering why the bus driver was frustrated and going on and on about how the passengers have mouths and how we should've said something. It took me a while to realize that he had taken the wrong route!!! Thank goodness he realized 5 minutes into the journey :D

Rushed home, frantically prepared the potato salad... And the barbeque pit! I single-handedly set up the barbeque pit. How exciting! Obviously there were some problems... Not all my coal were lit :P No biggie because most of them were lit, and food were getting cooked... The other half only arrived home at 7pm (and the genius told his family it would be a 7pm start >.< ). Fortunately they learnt from the steamboat event that the indicated start time wouldn't the be actual start time heheh... I did well! Chicken wings and lamb were cooking away by 7pm ^.^ For dessert that night, I had my favorite fruit of all times. The KING of all fruits. The DURIAN!!! *droooooools*

No pictures, sadly because I was too eager to devour the yummy, fragrant flesh ;)

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The end is nigh...

Three shifts to go until the end of my 10-week clinical rotation. It has truly been a wonderful experience, and I cannot wait to get out there.

An assignment we were required to complete involved interviewing a Registered Nurse regarding their experience from student nurse to an RN. I read articles about the difficulty some new grads faced, and I'm getting an inkling that I won't encounter any of those.

In my ten weeks I have learned how to think more critically, prioritize care and manage my time (although that needs more practice hehe...). Idare to change care plans (an RN admitted to me that she still doesn't dare to change care plans!), I question the need of a certain medication (or the lack of need), I advocate for my patients (yay me!).

My biggest challenge now is to pass Transitional Nursing Practice 417. Please, oh, please, don't let that be the anchor that drags me to the bottomless ocean of despair...

(No poker due to time constraints! So sad!)

A wonderful program

Google is such a magical place. With the aim of starting anew, I decided to delete my old blog and entries, and to start fresh. Of course, a person like me never likes letting go of old things completely. To save the page one by one is time consuming, not to mention that some of the files might not save correctly.

The solution?

DownThemAll!

This website provides a brief tutorial on how to back up a Blogger Blog.

Happy Back Up!