I have crossed over to the other side
Before I started medicine, I had always thought that nurses and doctors were a similar species. After all, don't we want the same things-the patients to get better, job satisfaction, and regular coffee breaks? Now I have "crossed over to the other side" I am much more aware of how different the two professions are.
I decided to go into nursing after doing A levels in English literature, history, and politics and being sure that I did not want to spend the next three years dissecting the finer points of Shakespeare. In fact, ever since, I have not read a "proper" book and still dislike broadsheet newspapers.
Nurse training was an interesting but at times frustrating experience. We were guinea pigs for the now obsolete Project 2000 course that was set up with the aim of making the nursing profession more academic. The idea was essentially good- training nurses with a greater theoretical basis on which to acquire practical skills. Unfortunately, this seemed to involve a lot of time spent learning about psychological models and sociological theories and precious little about actual disease.
Clinical skills training included making all students sit on a bedpan for 20 minutes to see how uncomfortable it was (and therefore remind us never to abandon patients in this position) and not being allowed home at the end of one day until we had made a bed properly.
There were good bits as well, like the nurses' home where I lived for the first two years of the course. A friend and I would wander into the main hospital in our pyjamas in the evening and perch on a window ledge in one particular corridor where you could see through the windows of the intensive care unit. This may sound like a very tragic way of passing time but honestly it was like live ER.
I first started seriously thinking about doing medicine while I was still a student nurse. Already convinced that nursing wasn't my vocation but interested in remaining in the healthcare field, I mulled over the professions allied to medicine, such as physiotherapy and occupational therapy. I had originally dismissed the idea of medicine as I had no science background (except a solitary biology GCSE) but then heard about the option of a premedical year at certain medical schools. I applied for the following year at the same time as I was applying for jobs as a qualified nurse. I then worked as a staff nurse in an accident and emergency department in inner city Birmingham for a year before moving to Dundee. This relatively short experience of working was certainly eye opening and introduced me to a more dynamic side of nursing, but served only to strengthen my desire to do medicine. The premedical year was challenging, but started to improve considerably after I had worked out what the "C" was in organic chemistry. There were eight other premedical students (although this number seems to vary each year, with some years having only two or three), all from a variety of non science backgrounds. We became quite a close knit group, cemented by the humiliation of having to attend remedial tutorials in chemistry and physics, where very patient tutors would go through the basics of their subjects. Since then I have not looked back. I have become one of the "sad" mature students whom we used to grumble about when I was a student the first time around, spending an unhealthy amount of time in the library and thoroughly enjoying extra reading. The skills I have acquired as a nurse help in a variety of ways-I am already familiar with medical jargon and aspects of patient care that might be overlooked from a purely medical viewpoint. Possibly the most important thing I have gained from the experience is an appreciation of how being friendly with the nurses and having their co-operation can make the job of a doctor so much easier. I still occasionally work as a nurse at the weekends and during the holidays to try and resuscitate my overdraft, although I now find the transition between roles more and more difficult. Reactions of other nurses to what I am doing vary. Most are very encouraging and supportive, but sometimes I think I am seen as a wolf in sheep's clothing when I have my uniform on. However, I am glad to say that the temptation to get out the x ray films and look at electrocardiograms when I am working as a nurse is now much greater than the temptation to make a bed when I am on the ward as a medical student.
Libby Wilkinson, third year medical student, University of Dundee
Email: libby_wilkinson@yahoo.co.uk
studentBMJ 2001;09:261-304 August ISSN 0966-6494
