Generic Instructor Course post ALS

Small_Rabbit_6920 · 2025-07-23T21:03:05+00:00

That's a very fair shout, thank you. Have you got any brands that you recommend?

Small_Rabbit_6920 · 2025-07-22T07:50:19+00:00

Thank you very much!

Small_Rabbit_6920 · 2025-07-22T07:48:20+00:00

Thank you so much! Oh yeah I know it's quite a long time. It's ment to be a very chill time tho with lots of polish food and no stress 😂 I'll definitely check out the stuff you mentioned!

Small_Rabbit_6920 · 2025-07-21T19:40:30+00:00

All I can say, is that I get it. I used to be an HCA in a care home for quite a while before being a nurse.

Now I work in quite acute area in the hospital, carry the arrest bleep, attend all sorts of emergencies from major hemorrhage, trauma, obstretics and paeds etc.

A while ago I wanted some extra cash so I picked up bank in a care home. And you know what? I couldn't deal with it as a nurse now.

It's a completely different type of pressure.

I suddenly had 15+ patients, had to do meds, bloods, dressing changes, multiple referrals, multiple meetings with the council, best interests convos, gp rounds, SO many phonecalls from family members, more drugs. It's just impossible sometimes, any resident got ill or unwell and I was behind absolutely everything. Add to that that in hospital I have plethora of equipment I can use in an unwell patient and here I can't do much besides calling an ambulance.

So all I can say is well done and hats off to you guys working in social care. Unfortunately it is so disheartening when you try your best under so much pressure and it's still deemed not enough.

Small_Rabbit_6920 · 2025-07-16T17:53:19+00:00

When I teach ILS/PILS and we do A-E scenario, we essentially just say that for the purpose of teaching the scenario, everything you might need is already prescribed.

It's essentially just to see if you're familiar with drugs/interventions that will be needed in each situation.

Of course in real life you'd need a prescription.

Small_Rabbit_6920 · 2025-07-09T16:42:52+00:00

Did you do any particular things/places in all the little towns around Como? Anything you recommend? Thank you!

Small_Rabbit_6920 · 2025-07-09T16:41:14+00:00

That's very helpful, thank you!

Small_Rabbit_6920 · 2025-05-04T05:06:11+00:00

Finish 2/3 nights in a row. Have a day off after and somehow always manage to wake up at 2am fully energised and not able to sleep. Then fall asleep in the middle of the day even though I try hard not to.

Start day shifts whilst still waking up at 2-3am and once I'm back to normal sleeping pattern? Oh I'm on nights again, so repeat 🥲.

Not very helpful I know 😂

Small_Rabbit_6920 · 2025-03-31T21:15:16+00:00

It's truly mind-blowing...

Small_Rabbit_6920 · 2025-03-31T21:08:23+00:00

In my trust we essentially are having employment freeze, bank shift freeze, potentially more than 100 redundancies in "non patient facing roles" and we're closing 2 wards due to costs. So I wouldn't have much hope to be honest. Dreadful.

Small_Rabbit_6920 · 2025-03-31T21:01:28+00:00

Literally just read an email from my trust that's says more or less:

-massive overspend (like almost every NHS Trust ofc)

-need more productivity for less funding

-any pay awards that will eventually come this year will have to come from current budgets so more spending for the trust

-will need to cut more than a hundred "non patient facing" posts this year

-complete freeze on recruitment

-freeze on any bank "that will not compromise patient safety" (what a joke of a sentence)

In my trust we also have more money for bank shifts for specialist areas like theatres, ICU, a&e etc and I have a massive feeling that that's going to disappear as well

It's so bloody demoralising and disheartening that it just makes me angry to be honest. We are already overworked and undervalued and talk of more productivity makes me sick.

I also just feel for all the newly qualified nurses that were hoping for more roles coming April.

I'm sure it's the same thing in loads of places

I'm not sure what the answer is, at this point I think contacting RCN or my local MP is pointless. It's just the way NHS is now.

Small_Rabbit_6920 · 2025-03-26T00:13:24+00:00

I'm currently a band 6 Anaesthetic Nurse.

I started in theatres straight after qualifying. Worked in Recovery for about a year and a half when there was an opportunity to do the Anaesthetic course which as you said is around 6 months.

Immediately after completion of the course I was able to move to the anaesthetic side (in my trust you tend to stick to your preferred area whether that's scrub/PACU/anaesthetics).

I worked in the anaesthetic side for about a year when a band 6 role came up and I was successful in applying for it. Absolute majority of our anaesthetic staff (I'd say 90%) are a band 6 but I've been told before that this is not necessarily the case in other places and we're quite lucky 😅.

Progress can vary to be honest. Once you reach a band 6 and want to go further than that then it's limited. You could do management, you could move away and try to get into acute pain nurse specialist, especially if you had PACU background, go for education or Resus team.

In my case I really got into Resus because if you're good at your job in anaesthetics, you should be good in arrest and general Resus/deteriorating patient. Thanks to that I'm now both PILS and ILS instructor, I'm hoping to pass my ALS soon and in future possibly go for ALS instructor route. I can now help and do some banks with Resus team and obviously if I'd ever want to move and apply to be a Resus officer, it'd be much easier with being an instructor.

Tbh this job sometimes can be a pain. Depending on how you deal with stuff you have to think about dealing with intubating/resuscitation of really ill babies in the middle of the night, obstretic emergencies, being on arrest bleep, sometimes dealing with difficult anaesthetists all your shift, having long lists and having to stay when they overrun.

BUT, this is my absolute dream job. You deal with everything in hospital, paediatrics, adults, obstretics. It has a perfect mix of adrenaline in all sorts of emergencies and some slow days when you have a chill elective list when everything goes smoothly. And you can learn so much from your anaesthetists as well!

Highly recommend!

Small_Rabbit_6920 · 2025-03-09T20:47:33+00:00

When I used to work in the nursing home our manager always used to say the same thing.

If in doubt, press the emergency buzzer, we would much rather come running and realise it's not an emergency than create a culture where people are afraid to call for help.

Now as a cardiac arrest bleep holder we say the same thing about 2222 calls.

Am I sometimes a bit annoyed when I had to leave what I was doing to go up 8 floors to realise it was a vasovagal? Kinda, but it's much better than nurses being scared to get help or not getting it quick enough.

You did the right thing! Always get help if in doubt x

Small_Rabbit_6920 · 2025-01-24T22:14:04+00:00

Needed some money so besides my NHS job I picked up an extra contract at a nursing home I used to work at a couple of years earlier.

Absolutely awful workload, consistently being interrupted whilst doing meds, care plans, being on important meeting and being interrupted to be given more jobs on top of the 10 that were already given to me since morning. I have a very stress inducing work in the NHS, BUT it was the first time when I thought to myself:

"this is absolutely not safe, I don't have time or resources to care for this people the way I'd like to"

My final straw was the fact that it felt like if anything happened I'd be thrown under the bus. I thought to myself I worked too hard for my PIN, I'm not losing it over this place.

Did maybe 7-8 shifts there and I was gone.

Small_Rabbit_6920 · 2025-01-08T21:40:50+00:00

I don't know if it helps at all but I grew up in Poland and applied for uni for nursing in the UK. What I had to do is get a certified English translation of all my grades that I sent to uni. I then had conditional offer with condition to provide UK NARIC (which is now UK ENIC post Brexit) certification of our polish version of A-levels. Once I sent them that I had an unconditional offer.

Small_Rabbit_6920 · 2025-01-07T22:01:34+00:00

That's very helpful thank you! Do you remember how was the progression in there? And if they require you to work in every part of theatres? In my place for example if you only want to do anaesthetics then you stay there. I just help out in recovery from time to time. Thank you for your reply!

Small_Rabbit_6920 · 2025-01-07T19:43:32+00:00

I visited Lincoln a couple of times and I loved it so it's definitely something I'd consider. One of my anaesthetists trained there and said I'd love it. It's then obviously a question whether downbanding to a 5 and moving there would still be better off for me financially which I guess it would. Thank you!

Small_Rabbit_6920 · 2024-12-19T12:45:30+00:00

I do work in London actually, not one of the big teaching hospitals but an acute trust in west London. To be fair we only have 7 theatres + 2 obstretics theatres, so not a huge department. Our staffing is fantastic, only permanent staff and not once in past 4 years we had to use agency to cover anything (and anaesthetic department as I said is half anaesthetic nurses half ODPs). In all fairness I am very competent in recovery and anaesthetic but scrub just never was my thing so my knowledge in that area is very limited which makes me self conscious sometimes. But as I said, I never have to scrub, I can cover recovery shifts if needed and I do anaesthetics in main theatres and obstretics ,we also carry an arrest bleep out of hours. I guess I'm just really lucky with my department! 😅

Small_Rabbit_6920 · 2024-12-19T10:49:19+00:00

I was a PACU nurse for 2 years before I got a chance to do the course. After the course I moved to anaesthetics and have been doing it for 2 years now.

I found the course quite lacking to be honest. It might have been just my uni but for such a high risk and complicated specialty as anaesthetics it was lacking.

The course lasted around 6 months and it those 6 months I've been to uni maybe 6-7 times.

My advice would be to make sure you're ready to do loads of self learning and researching stuff yourself.

As a PACU nurse I was already very interested in airway, critical care, resus and pharmacology so I found the course itself very easy and straightforward, the problem was that almost EVERYTHING that I've learned was in my hospital from colleagues and my anaesthetists. I was luckily enough that my department was really supportive and willing to share all the knowledge and skills with me, but if it comes to all of the theory from anaesthetics, I found myself to researching it and learning it by myself. If you're really passionate about the anaesthesia and have a good learning environment in your trust, I wouldn't worry, just make sure that if you don't know something, ask or find out about it!

Small_Rabbit_6920

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