Hi, my name is Peter, and I was a Registered Nurse from 1987 until 2015 when I retired. My training consisted of practical work on the wards, and attendance at periodical "study blocks". Many of the students lived in and I'm told a good time was had by all on more than one occasion!!
Even though I was the oldie of the group, we all got along as well as could be expected. We were all knackered by the end of the shift, so all had empathy for each other : hard bond-forming work!
I recall one day when I was looking after a gentleman after a hip replacement. I went into his room and he wasn't looking too good....in fact he was unconcious! I did all the right things and it so happened that his surgeon was walking by outside the room. (This was a private Hospital, no residents, registrars, or resus teams. Unfortunately the man passed away. For most of us, it was the first time we had seen a dead body, and it was really weird in that we all went to the utility room (NOT together) to come to terms with it!
Later on I did a grad dip in cardiac nursing, and most unfortunately, death was around every corner!
My apologies for the rambling, but it's a little difficult to cram almost thirty years into a few paragraphs! If you have gotten this far, thanks for reading......