Author Archives: Antonia Nicollette Andrews
Reflection on my time spent with the home dialysis team
This is a reflection on my time spent with the home dialysis team. Reflecting on my time with the home dialysis team, I feel a great sense of growth as I am able to develop my knowledge in dialysis. I was able to shadow amazing professionals, who gave me a good back ground on home dialysis and the benefits which has deepened my understanding of patient care and the importance of personalized treatment plans. I learnt that patients are able to dialysis at home and do it themselves. However, in order to dialysis at home themselves they have to be competent in cleaning their own dialysis line (central venous line). I was able to shadow the nurse in teaching the patient how to clean the line in the best and most sterile way as possible. The patients have to attend the training at the hospital for at least 3 weeks. This means the patient has to attend 3x a week for the next 3 weeks at the hospital to be shown how to clean their own line, be shown the dialysis machine and connect themselves.
Patients on home dialysis get delivery’s and are able to come into the hospital to collect stock. Once the patient is competent and the nurse and the patient are happy for them to dialysis independently at home, the nurse visits the patient once every 6 weeks to carry out assessments such as, relevant blood tests and to check their competency’s again. Personally I found home dialysis to have many benefits such as, more flexibility and better health outcomes. I was also able to speak to a patient on home dialysis and she said she is able to go on holidays now where as before when she had to come into the hospital 3x a week this was hard for her. Overall, I felt I had a positive experience with the home dialysis team and spending my time with the nurses and patients has contributed to my learning.
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Antonia managed to learn and practice dialysis skills within short period of time, she able to involve with the team and build up her team work skill well.
Confident in her clinical skills gives reason why she is performing the skills , managed to develop clinical knowledge on dialysis patients such as, pre and post weight, connect and disconnect patent on dialysis setting up ultrafiltration rate per patient target weight and setting up dialysis line for AVF and CVC lines and also follow trust guideline to change patient dressing using aseptic technique. In addition Antonia is punctual person she come to work early all the time and wear student uniform appropriately , professional and keen to learn new skills at all time, I am sure she will be a very good addition for the nursing profession.
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Antonia asked relevant questions in clinic today. She remained professional throughout, introduced herself to patients and greeted them with a big smile.
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Antonia has been an elective student with us for the past 4 weeks. She has been immersing herself in the clinical trial setting. She has been proactive in assessing the patients, carrying out observations, performing ECGs, learning about the drugs we give. She has shadowed many different nurses. She has observed PICC and PORT management. Whilst here she has been keen to learn from experience including going to Doctors clinics, learning from time on the medical day unit, and observing in the urgent care unit.
Antonia has good time management and introduces herself well to patients. She has a kind calm manner. She has fitted in well to the team environment. I hope she has learnt from her experience here and can take some of the learning experiences to her next placement.
We wish her good luck.
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Toni is an attentive student. We discussed the new documentation from the National Wound Care Strategy Programme (NWCSP). Including leg ulcer recommendations of simple dressings and reduced compression if no red flags prior to Doppler assessment.
For pressure ulcers, we looked at classification and ASSKING framework for assessment.
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I have had the pleasure of being the assessor for Antonia Andrews Year 2 student nurse for the last 6 weeks.
Her conduct and professionalism has been exemplary, she is a great nurse in the making. Her enthusiasm is great and she is confident asking questions within a team she is not familiar with. She has a thirst for knowledge and is quick to learn.
She has been out with variety of staff with different grades and roles i.e. physio, community matron, HCA, phlebotomist and our pro active care coordinator. They have all returned with positive comments following the interaction with Antonia.
A pleasure to work with and I hope she will apply for a role with my team when she does qualify as a nurse.
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A willing hardworking future nurse, who is not afraid to get involved and get her hands dirty.
Antonia was very friend and approachable with the patients putting them at easy as sometimes it is hard to as a student to be allowed to participate due to patient’s concerns. However she was welcomed due to her calm demeanour.
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Antonia attended catheter and bowel management training on 15.11.23. She was attentive asked intelligent questions and interacting well with the others in the class. Antonia is an active learner. She enjoyed the practical part of the training and during role play she was confident and demonstrated that she had gained knowledge from the session.
Well done and good luck with your training.
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I am writing to recommend Toni -student nurse who I worked on 10.11.2023 in Crossways Nursing Home.
Toni has numerous strengths to offer.
For instance, she is very professional, responsible, well- organized, dedicated and sympathetic individual.
Throughout her day at Crossways Nursing Home, I found out Toni constantly provided safe and compassionate care to our residents and other staff on duty at that day. She was enthusiastic to learn something new and she has a great communication skills to working as a nurse and communicate with patients, their families and all medical team.
To put it briefly, I would highly recommend Toni for a future nice nurse who will be capable to look after people whenever she choose to work with your career as a nurse.
I wish her best of luck in her future endeavours.