Roles and skill sets

Over the last few weeks, I have been on placement at one of twenty-seven Major Trauma Centres located across the UK, Royal Stoke University Hospital (RSUH). As a well-established teaching hospital, it is used to having medical, nursing and midwifery students. However, this academic year, for the first time, it has welcomed paramedic students from Keele University.

The difference between working in a hospital environment and a prehospital environment is considerable and, with this, came a certain amount of apprehension prior to the start of my placement block. However, I soon started to find my feet and settle into each department.

My first week was spent with the medical nurse practitioners (MNPs) as part of the hospital-at-night team. As independent practitioners, they assess and treat patients when conditions change, can prescribe should extra medication or fluids be required, and they also respond to other various emergencies across the hospital complex. I expanded my knowledge of the importance of documentation, most notably, medication charts. I also had the opportunity to assess patients and interpret test results alongside MNPs prior to them making decisions about medications.