Practical skills

[sarahlovie1]

I'm a relatively newly qualified nurse (qualified Oct last year) and currently work in mental health nursing on the nurse bank (did try a couple of permanent nursing homes, one in a care home and one on a ward, but struggled both with practical skills and with time management and prioritising, which I found very difficult). I'm OK on bank shifts if in a ward which is not old age (no problems with chatting to patients, continuous observations, medication rounds or admissions), but I panic on old age wards as it takes me ages to get to grips with practical things, which has caused some exasperation among some of my colleagues. In particular I struggle with personal care, catheter care, moving and handling and dressings (although only had one class on dressings at university). I am concerned that I will make a big mistake one day, and am thinking about asking the nurse bank co-ordinator only to send me to non-old-age wards (although I love the contact with the patients, it's the skills that defeat me). What would any of you advise me to do? Many thanks in advance. Great to be part of this forum, hopefully we can all help each other. I haven't been diagnosed with dyspraxia, but have many of the symptoms -poor co-ordination and manual dexterity, problems organising and prioritising workload, and remembering sequences for practical tasks. A few of my colleagues have said things like "you should know how to do these things, you're trained", and "have a bit of sense". I feel nursing is my career of choice, but not sure how good I am at it.

[AlleyCat]

It definitely seems as if you have dyspraxia. However, if you have not been diagnosed it will be difficult for you to explain why you shouldn't work on the old age wards- if you go to your supervisor saying that you shouldn't be placed on those wards because of your problems with practical skills, then you could well put the idea of 'incompetence' in the supervisor's head. Unfortunately line managers sometimes still try to go down the 'incompetence' route with someone who has been diagnosed with dyspraxia, but the important difference there is that a person who has been diagnosed has legal protection against disability discrimination. If you had a diagnosis of dyspraxia, then being allowed to not work on the elderly wards might be considered to be a 'reasonable adjustment' if there was enough work available for you to do on the other wards.

From having read various posts on these forums, I have noticed that it is actually quite common for people with dyspraxia to pursue a career in nursing. When you consider that people with dyspraxia are often very caring, this makes sense. Ironically though, nursing is of course a profession which demands frequent use of practical skills. However, this should not mean that people with dyspraxia ought to be excluded from a nursing career- you may be interested to know that even the Royal College of Nursing acknowledges that there are nurses with dyspraxia, and has produced a guide about working with nurses who have dyspraxia, dyslexia or dyscalculia:

http://www.rcn.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf ... 003835.pdf

Btw I found this guide by doing a Google search using the words nursing AND dyspraxia.

[sarahlovie1]

Many thanks for your reply -it's really helpful, and I'll have a good look at the link you sent me. I will also approach my GP to see if it's possible to be assessed for dyspraxia-just want to do well as a nurse, and to provide best possible care for patients. Great to have people's support on here!