Mentor in The C Word

It does make me laugh, and also a little bit proud, that in the midst of all that’s going on right now, the junior staff are still asking me for advice and coming for a little chat about their problems.

I guess we’re friends and colleagues as well as patient and family and the lines are blurred. It’s quite nice actually, I’ve just been giving a little pep talk to one of our very young, very newly qualified staff nurses. She’s broken up with her boyfriend last month and she’s struggling to find the joy in nursing and life in general really. It’s the first Christmas she’s ever worked, and she said she’s struggled with listening to all her family having a party downstairs last night, while she was upstairs in bed before her shift today.

It is hard to find a balance sometimes, especially when you’re young, and new, and don’t feel like you’re doing well. It’s a difficult ward to come to for your first job, and it requires emotional maturity that’s probably still developing in a 21 year old who’s never had any personal experience of cancer or death. It’s draining even on a mild day. If you can survive here as a nurse, you can probably survive most places, it’s intense and the pressure is immense. Our standards are high and our care is excellent, and it’s a lot to live up to.

It must be difficult coming in as the new girl with no experience and seeing everyone else getting on with it, juggling the workload and making it look manageable. But we’re all just swans with out little legs motoring under the surface.