These additional quotes are referred to in chapter 5 using the numbers cited below.
1) „When I was a third-year student I was kind of taking more of the staff nurse role and taking my own patients and so to go back and be told to observe, and I was just watching, I felt I was going back to stage one...when what I really wanted was to start as a proper staff nurse.‟ (Sam)
2) „You get an interview and they'd say have you got your PIN number yet? And I'd say “no still waiting for the piece of paper to come back” and then you'd be worried about whether that would affect whether or not you got the job.‟ (Sam)
3) „I felt I could do a little bit of reading around what I would be doing and get myself prepared...it sort of helps you to come to terms with “well I am a professional now, I'm a nurse”...if I had gone straight into it I think I would have felt quite anxious, I think I would have felt, “I think I needed a break.”‟ (May)
4) „It was exciting to get my results, very nerve wracking at first, but as long as I passed, I didn‟t mind what I got, as long as I passed.‟ (Marie)
5) „I thought I probably did have 2:1 but to get a first I was really amazed because I didn't really know how to add it all up...and also I wasn't trying to achieve that I was just trying to get through it.‟ (May)
6) „To feel that it was all completed I couldn't believe it really, it was also a bit scary to think I am a nurse now when I have been just a student, just a student for three years.‟ (May)
7) „It‟s a real confidence thing with me, when I first started I don‟t think I was confident at all but I‟m getting that now and just feeling more like a nurse now. I think it only happened in the last month, it‟s taken quite a while, it is sort of up-and-down, up-and- down quite a bit...I think it makes you grow a lot as a person, you know having a lot more confidence in yourself and knowing that you can deal with new situations and cope within the new situations. I know I say confidence a lot but I think that was the big thing.‟ (Chris)
8) „I‟ve got where I‟ve wanted to be…and I‟ve achieved it.‟ (Marie)
9) „Having family and friends supporting me, saying that you can do it and well, encouraging you to go out there and do it, and also the staff encouraging you to try something new, so if you haven‟t really looked after a patient before, they‟ll encourage you to try it, and go through what you might need to do and things...to encourage you to build up those skills that you need to be the staff nurse and improve your progress and confidence in other areas that you are not sure about.‟ (Marie)
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10) „I keep saying “you've got to remember I am newly qualified and I need support,” so I have to keep saying that because it can be easily “oh you can run this, and you'll be fine”...but I do need guidance...it's about knowing my limits really isn‟t it, and knowing what I feel comfortable with, with what I know I‟ve practised.‟ (May)
11) „I was very fortunate I had eight weeks, I think it‟s an amazing transition because you‟re there, you‟re doing it, but not solely in charge, and you‟re with somebody, you can ask a question every 15 seconds if you want because that‟s what they fully expect you to do. Because anything…everything is new, every last…from what a ventilator does, to where can I find the blue needle! Everything, everything is new, so you can ask a million questions, and you have someone who is there with you for the entire day to do that with.‟ (Lee)
12) „It felt quite strange her [student] coming to me asking me questions, and getting me to sign her off and things, „cause only a few months ago, that would have been me! And I had to check and say, “is this ok for me to do this?” And they were like, “yeah you‟re a registered nurse, you can do that!” And that felt quite strange [laughs]…it seems that the student always seems to come to me and I don‟t know whether it‟s because I‟ve only just qualified and I could kind of relate to what she was asking me, and I think I was like the youngest one there, so, that felt quite nice in a way that she felt that she could come and talk to me.‟ (Ann)
13) „Even though the responsibility is quite scary; it is nice to be a staff nurse now and to get on and do things for my own patients now rather than when I was a student and had to ask and get everything checked.‟ (Sam)
14) „They don‟t let you do anything you feel that you‟re not happy to do, I can‟t fault the support network that I‟ve had, because, my erm, my nurse in charge, she wants me to move forward, but she doesn‟t like say, “well, don‟t do anything you feel uncomfortable with” but “just remember you will be supported with like, if we hand over in the
morning, try and take ones that interest you, or more complicated, „cause then, you can, and then you‟ll be supported by the person next to you.”‟ (Lee)
15) „You get assigned to a supervisor, mine is [a senior nurse] and she sits me down every couple of weeks and we talk about anything we need to talk about. We set goals for what I want to achieve, any training that I might need.‟ (Chris)
16) „When I qualified, I did really, really like neonates, but I thought, I won‟t apply to neonates, „cause I wanted to get that extra experience behind me, but now I think, doing my rotation, I‟ve come back to neonates and I really enjoy it, so I don‟t know whether maybe that‟s where I‟ll go.‟ (Ann)
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17) „I bought quite a few neonatal books that I come back and read after a shift and on the unit there are books and journals so if there is anything I am not sure about I can always read up about them.‟ (Sam)
18) „I still am a newly qualified, and you do worry about these things, „cause there are people on that unit who are so knowledgeable, it‟s unbelievable you know?‟ (Lee) 19) „I find it really hard with things like breastfeeding. I was expected to go in and help a
mum was breastfeeding but I didn‟t have any experience, and that‟s something that is quite hard to teach isn‟t it?‟ (Sam)
20) „We‟re getting the first-year students in and I talk to them and suggest to them like, get in there, ask questions, make sure, if you get anything interesting, get in there and be a part of it and things...encouraging them not to leave things to the last minute and things, and just make sure that they‟re prepared and to always ask really if they‟re not sure about something.‟ (Marie)
21) „If you're looking after their baby they expect you to know everything about the care that you‟re providing to their baby and there have been times when I haven‟t known everything and that‟s probably one of the peak areas that I found quite difficult...but it is hard to explain to parents because they think you‟ve done your three years training you know and they don‟t realise that you‟ve only had like a five-week placement on NICU, you know and you don‟t want to say like “I am newly qualified” because then they might think “well they‟re not going to know if I asked them that” [rueful
laugh]...but because they know that I have to go and ask somebody else I worry that they‟ll think less of me.‟ (Sam)
22) „When you have the parents with you all the time as well, you need to have good communication with them because they, obviously are very, very worried and that sort of thing, and you‟re in liaising with the parents and you‟ve got the child there as well, so make sure you have the parents really well informed and that you‟re liaising well with the doctors.‟ (Lee)
23) „I can remember feeling really nervous. I was supernumerary, and so it was more observational...I was probably quite quiet, I mean I didn't know the staff or team I was working with and you feel like you're the new one.‟ (Chris)
24) „I thought, well even though I‟ve worked in an assessment unit, they seem to do things differently. So I wanted to help out but at the same time I wasn‟t quite sure what I was doing...I felt quite embarrassed and quite shy, and I thought, well I don‟t want to be sat down doing nothing „cause they‟re not really gonna think very much of me, so I wanted to try and get involved, but then I felt like I was in the way as they were rushing around, and I didn‟t know where anything was or anything like that.‟ (Ann)
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25) „It was quite scary, but it was quite good actually to get thrown into the deep end after such a long time, I think I slightly benefited from being able to just get stuck in there.‟ (Marie)
26) „The first time I went to theatre, „cause as a student you had to take someone with you, whereas now you just walk down the long corridor and pick the patient up
yourself and bring them back, so it‟s a lot more responsibility in case anything does go wrong with bringing them back.‟ (Marie)
27) „My very first shift I was with my mentor, and I actually worked with a level three post- op cardiac, on my very first shift, which absolutely terrified the socks off me for a very first shift, and was probably not the best thing to do for my very first one but, I still did, and I thought, oh my god, in some ways, what the hell is going on here, this is
unbelievable...it‟s like being a student, but not even like a student, it‟s like being, when you first start in year one, when you first get into the hospital you know, and you‟ve never done it before in your life and your thinking oh my god! „Cause even though you‟ve got obviously a hell of a lot more experience, but it‟s like a different…it‟s a completely different, just because of the route that I took at the moment, being in intensive care, it‟s a completely different ball game.‟ (Lee)
28) „You have your eight weeks to start with, then you go to supervised practice, you have your orientation programme, which that is ongoing, so basically it‟s ongoing. You‟re always, you permanently seem to be training and learning just permanently.‟ (Lee) 29) „In our induction you get a whole week nine-to-five Monday to Friday and they go
through everything possible, you know, mandatory training, and you just get different talks...It was just really nice because obviously you start with the group of people who are all new, not all nurses and it's nice to get to know what other people are going to be doing. You don't feel like you are the only new one.‟ (Chris)
30) „I didn‟t get my um, induction pack, um, „til a couple of weeks later...if I was in a completely new place then I would have found it a hell of a lot more valuable, but „cause I knew the majority of where things were, and understood what goes where, and what I didn‟t understand, I just asked anyway.‟ (Marie)
31) „We had quite a few children in all over Christmas when I was on the assessment unit, and that was putting quite a lot of stress on the main ward, where they‟ve been so short staffed it‟s made the whole atmosphere quite stressful, and I‟ve come home really, really late, and that‟s made me feel really tired and really stressed.‟ (Ann) 32) „They interviewed me and things, which is quite daunting, and they caution you...and
that was quite scary actually. There was someone, a child protection officer from the police, and then there was our child protection officer, and then I had someone, a
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representative of the RCN with me, which was quite scary, „cause that was within the first couple of weeks...‟ (Marie)
33) „It was nice to talk to someone from our family and to talk through it...and it‟s still not fully resolved yet, there‟s still processes going through, it‟s quite daunting, I do try to stick it in the back of my mind and make sure it doesn‟t affect what I actually do.‟ (Marie)
34) „I felt a little bit lost, if you know what I mean, I didn't know what I would do……if it was me and I was the only one, I think I'd probably get on with it but because there was someone who knew better they were getting on with it and I was an outsider still learning what to do if it happened when I was on my own, but it did frighten me what can happen with our children.‟ (May)
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