First day at work

Today was my first day at work, so after rather reluctantly dragging myself from my lovely warm bed, I got up and ready and headed out for the day. Once at the centre I met my mentor who will be looking after me for my placement and some of the other members of the team that I’ll also get to work with. 

My morning visits consisted of mainly wound care and catheter care. I did quite a lot of work in these areas while on my community nursing placement at home, but it was very interesting to have new scenarios and things to read up on after only one morning. Before lunch I was given a proper tour of the health centre, with the most important room being where to make tea and coffee of course… Afternoon visits saw more wound care and diabetes management, then back to the office to do admin and to prep for tomorrow. It appears that news of my visit to Shetland has already been mentioned to many of the NHS staff working in Lerwick as when I was introduced to people, they often replied with ‘ah yes you’re the girl that’s come from Southampton’, which I found rather amusing. Another funny thing I’ve noticed is that many of the patients have trouble understanding what I’m saying as I don’t have a Scottish accent. This also works the other way around as a Shetland accent is really rather difficult to comprehend, but I’m sure I’ll grow accustomed to it. An early finish was a welcome surprise as even though it didn’t feel like a particularly busy day, I could tell my brain was a bit tired and overloaded from taking in all the information which happens at the beginning of any new placement.

Once I got back to my accommodation, I made some dinner and had a think about what to do with my evening. I decided to take a walk to the supermarket, but I took a slightly more scenic route along the ‘sletts’ by the sea front. I did get a bit excited as I thought I saw an orca (they can often be spotted in the waters around Shetland), but it turns out it was just a wave hitting a rock that was further out from the shore… I grabbed some cookies from the supermarket as I forgot to get them yesterday when I went shopping. I was going to go on a bit of a longer walk to Clickimin Broch which is just a bit further up the road from the supermarket, so I could feel like I’d earned the cookies a bit more, but I could literally see the fog rolling down the hills in front of me so I decided against it. I’ve then spent the evening planning various days out and researching things that I’d like to see while I’m up here. Now if I’d been organised, I would have done this all ages ago, but I’m not, so I hadn’t, but it hasn’t taken me long to plan a good few activities and day trips. My main goal this weekend is to try and go to the puffin hotspots around the island, before they all head off to wherever it is they go over the autumn to the spring.

All set for adventure planning