No catches yet

So that's four weeks completed at my first placement. I notched up 6 witnesses, 23 postnatal checks, 4 baby checks, 2 occasions of taking blood, 2 occasions of witnessing suturing but no catches of my own just yet.

I had some "fun" with blood taking this week. The first time I took blood, it went perfectly; the second time, I went wrong and didn't get it so my mentor took over. So I decided I needed to get back on the horse and try again sooner rather than later to avoid getting a hang up on it. So I went alone to this lady with a third year student by my side, identified the vein and as soon as I put the needle in the vein collapsed. The 3rd year tried and the same thing happened, so she tried the other arm and it happened again. So we got the registered midwife to try and she couldn't get it either. In the end I think a doctor got her blood. So whilst initially I was gutted and thought I was just going to mess up each time, I was thoroughly relieved to discover that it wasn't me and I'd done everything right, it was just the lady in questions veins misbehaving lol. Anyway I got the opportunity to try again on my final shift; I was nervous about it as I really didn't want it to go wrong again. So I got the registered midwife to come along with me; she took a look first to make sure it was a nice easy vein; to ensure I had a good chance of getting it. So I took position, identified the vein which was a lovely bouncy one. I put the needle in and then held my breath as I attached the blood bottle, thinking all the time "please spurt blood straight away" and sighed with relief when it did!

I also thankfully got some of my formative and summative assessments signed off which really made me a lot happier. It's so hard though - how on earth do you grade someone on being able to identify the emergency buzzers? Surely either you can or you can't? We all agreed it wasn't a great system....especially since who is marking you can vary a lot. Oh well so long as I pass, that's all that matters at this stage.

So now I have three weeks annual leave to enjoy. I've already begun it well with a fantastic night out with some friends and I am also hoping to take some more bump photos so I'll still be posting.

Are you enjoying my blog so far? Any questions about what I'm doing?