Work Experience- St. John of God Hospital Ballarat

Travelling to Ballarat by train each day was one big step for the start of work experience, having to wake up early and be there on time and not miss the train! It was a lot of fun at first but as the week went by I got tired.

I walked each day from the station to the hospital which was about 5 blocks and at the end of each day I would meet with Caitlin at Central Square where she was working at Myers and finished at 5:30pm.

At 5:55pm we would both walk to the station and catch a bus back home.

Arriving in the hospital was a little strange since I hadn't ever had to be in one. I arrived early and waited on the couches for the supervisor. Inside the hospital was warm and comforting and everyone was nice.

Once the supervisor had met up I realised that there was 5 other students doing work experience in the hospital as well. 2 of them were doing hospitality work in the staff cafeteria and 4 of us were doing nursing in separate wards.

Each morning break we would sit with the nurses from our ward and listen to discussions about various things. At lunch break the nurses only had 30 minutes and work experience students got 1 hour so us work experience students world sit with each other, usually the nurses would let us take longer than we needed so it was quite a breezy week with loads of freedom.

Working in my ward which was 2 East meaning it was on the second floor on the east side, it was quite an amazing week even though I mostly did filing and observing, all of the nurses were nice and open, they were all asking questions about where I was from and why I chose nursing, they also asked if I wanted to be a nurse!

In 2 East it was the wound ward where they were a lot of patients with wounds and patients which had had knee replacements and hip replacements. There were Ward Clerks, Nurses, and a Physio and the occasional doctor of surgeon walking through the ward. There were also university students on placement which I often talked to! The patients were also very talkative!

I helped out with a lot of different nurses, I observed dressings of wounds, needles and I helped with observations such as, blood pressure and blood oxygen levels and I got to test patients temperature through their ears. I also got to make patients beds in the mornings after they had gotten up for breakfast and showers.

The food at the cafeteria was amazing, they cooked scones and muffins for morning tea and you could have hot drinks such as coffee, Milo or tea. At lunch the hot foods were vegetables, lasagna, baked potatoes with sour cream, cheese and coleslaw, roast meats, pasta, pies and pasties! They also had sandwiches, rolls, salad, fruit salad and yogurt! It was great food, plus work experience students got as much as they wanted for free!

During the week I learned a lot and got over my fear of needles!