I have recently made many visits to one of our major teaching hospitals – taking an ancient relative to see her son who has been in there for some 10 weeks.  He’s had a great deal of hospital treatment over the years and sadly doesn’t seem to get a lot…

January can be such an odd month – very much a low down after the excitement of Christmas and the new year festivities for most families.  However, where there are nurses and hospital staff amongst us, we will be familiar with duty rotas that intrude and make us feel we’re…

I was working as private secretary to the judiciary for several years and one colleague joined the typing pool – she was bubbly and an excellent typist.  She needed to be as the amount of work that stacked up was phenomenal.  She could decipher even the most spider like scrawl…

When you go through school you’re asked what you think you want to be when you grow up – a daft question really.  No youngster has any idea about what any job involves at that age, unless of course they come from a family of doctors or specialists in any…

I have a relative who has been in nursing since leaving school – she did her degree at a big teaching university hospital and has never really thought about any other career.  Things change and move on of course – after a working career on orthopaedics, she suddenly decided to…

There are some truly amazing documentaries on tv these days.  The range from watching someone beetling around the country collecting debt repayments from the lifelong debtors and the sharp end of the crown prosecution service – how they come to the decision to allow police to prosecute in cases.  There…

Anyone who has had to spend any time at all in a hospital, be it as an inpatient for treatment, or as an outpatient for day assessment or a procedure, the same familiar old anxieties rise up.  Nurses and procedure operatives are so well trained these days  – they make…

I often have to go for blood tests and am amazed how many other folk are always in the queue a while before I get there.  It’s true to say that some of these folk seem to be on the gargantuan side of the equation – I am not.  Having…

Having a work experience student in our office for two weeks is an most enlightening period for all of us over a certain age.  Since the advent of these work weeks, it has been our privilege to offer a placement or two to the local upper school.  Our particular office…

When we say medidcal students, it can mean several things these days.  Not everyone going into the medical profession plans necessarily to go into being a doctor, hospital or private home based GP.  By the same token, just saying I want to be a nurse, no longer signals you want…