The first week of MINE

Today is Sunday and the first week for MINE has ended. I feel like the days have just flown by with something to new to learn every day. And it has been great J

I really enjoyed the trip to the cottages and it was a very good experience to try the Finnish sauna and even the ice-cold water. It was a nice end to the day with the bonfire and to see how people who had every cocked sausages over a bonfire before was so into it.  

As with all group work we had some discussions about how to do our assignment and how to make the group work. It is only naturally when we come from six difference cultures and we are use to work in a certain way so compromises had to be made. But it all went very well.

The group work is coming along and we now have a more or less clear idea about our digital story. I think we have a pretty good and functional group (group 5) were everybody is active and full of great ideas. All of us are heard and we even speak over each other sometimes because we all have ideas and we are not afraid to speak English even though we make mistakes, which is really nice. We are all involved in helping develop the great ideas we have the group. Before we began the group work I thought there might be some language problems but that has not really been the case and when we are struggling to find the right word there are always someone who knows it (and is it not only the English ;p).

Doing our group work we constantly talk about the differences and similarities in our healthcare systems and how nursing is in our countries. One of the things we talked about is fixation in the mental health wards. In the UK they do not used fixation but medications and in Finland they have the cells for uncontrollable patients. It got me thinking. In Denmark we use fixation and most of the patients feel that is helps them. But on the other hand when we fixate we take away the patients human rights and the patient’s free will. I know that we only do it for the best of our patients but it is an assault. But then again drugging the patients does not the right way to go about it either. It is a very difficult and sensitive area of nursing and I have not got that much experience with this area so I cannot really evaluate what it the best way to help the mental patients. But it is a very interesting dissuasion.        

I know the upcoming week will be a lot of hard work and long day but I am looking forward to do our assignment and see how the other groups will go about their assignments.

That’s all for now have a nice Sunday J

Dresses or Trousers?

Thank you for last night – it was really cosy J

Yesterday was the day we saw all the films from the difference countries. It was really interesting to see the films and see how the nursing education is in the difference countries. In the film about the Czech Republic I noticed that the female nurses had a dress as a uniform. In Denmark we no longer use dresses because the female nurses did not like to wear them because they felt that they were too showing and that they sometimes was a obstacle when they had to help the patients.  Personally I prefer the trouser and jacket because they make me feel more safe.

In the same film the nurse students went “home” in their uniforms. I know that they do that in other countries as well but in Denmark we are not allow to bring our uniforms home because of the bacteria and the hygiene. And that just got me thinking how do you prevent your patients getting sick because of you?