I want to be a Nurse

I'm on 'interprofessional experience week' at the minute. I've been spending my time shadowing nurses, support workers, phlebotamists, dieticians, healthcare assistants and occasionally, a doctor or two. I've been trying to keep my distance from them in case they ask me anything I don't know. Because actually, it turns out there's an awful lot I don't know. I've lost all confidence in my abilities as a medical student; everyone else seems to be able to ramble off some scientific gobbledegook at the appropriate moment and I just nod and smile. All drug names that I've ever come across roll into one, and the only thing I can remember is whether or not I've written out repeat prescriptions for them at the doctors surgery I worked at two-and-a-half years ago. I have absolutely no idea what I'm expected to have learnt over the past two years, where all this knowledge has run away to and how I'm supposed to get it back.

I have realised that I quite like nursing. I like spending time with the patients, the idea of them calling you by your name and being comfortable enough to tell you things without necessarily expecting you to know the answers. I like the routine tasks, like making hospital beds and dishing out lunches. And after this summer, I can deal with urine, faeces and bed-bathing old people. I like the sense of sorority amongst the staff team, and the bitching about the doctors (because they really do).

I think I'm in the wrong profession. Tomorrow I'm shadowing a social worker, and I think I'll like that one too. Speech and language therapy looks interesting. Anything but medicine right now.