Bed 22

Its end of the 4th week and I still haven't bought my books. I'm falling behind and there's nothing I can do about it because they are out of stock! Anyhow, I better talk about my experiences at RPAH before I forget it all.

At first I did not enjoy the experience. The nurses were acting elite and weren't really guiding us around, while we felt overly useless and irrelevant since we could not help the patients in anything beyond our learning scope ( which is nearly everything apart form basic obs and basic duties of care).

However, by the end of the first week I felt a sense of accomplishment when one of the patients; bed no. 22 ( privacy purposes) remembered my name. He was a nice elderly man and was placed in a room where he was all alone despite him not having anything infectious. He asked me for my name one day as I was taking his obs and he commented that he felt lonely and isolated because no one else was giving him any company or attention since he was at the end of the ward and alone in the four-patient room. I told him that since I don't have much duties to do myself that I would go chat with him.

Since then I've been finding myself chatting to him about all sorts of things.. soccer, politics, history of Australia, morality... One day he asked me whether I had the power to help him change rooms. I joked that I am just a student nurse and I may have charisma but no authority whatsoever ( I wasn't real close with the nurses at that moment).In hindsight I failed to help him voice his request to those in power. It was 2 weeks later that I found out his partner had passed away 2 weeks prior to his admission and he was in the Korean War. Suddenly I realized why he mentioned that being in a isolated room felt like capital punishment of solitary confinement. I was totally careless and oblivious to the patients situation!!

We remained close 'friends' throughout his stay. The day that bed 22 was discharged I was present but I had to perform duties for other patients so I did not get the opportunity to bid him farewell personally, however I will fondly remember him and the lessons I have learnt during my care for him.