Silver bullets or magic wands - that is.
This ongoing news is very distressing for everyone.
I attended a sign-off mentors meeting yesterday afternoon and everyone takes this still relatively new role (outside midwifery) very seriously. It's a very parochial and a biased perspective, but I do believe that in teaching h2cm to the students that I come across they are better prepared to nurse, be a nurse and indeed question what nursing is to them and the public at large. This applies to all qualified nurses who try their collective utmost to instill positive values, safe practice and professional attitudes of the highest order.
Through h2cm I try to provide students with a reflective gravity assist.
As a student I recognised the gravity of what I was doing, or at least trying to do.
30+ years later I still need to do that.
If a student does not recognise the presence of gravity in the care environment, they cannot be effectively guided, navigate their way through it, warn of pending problems. They may not be able to work as an effective member of a team.
Collisions will happen. At the end (and start) of the day even if the student is sensitive to gravity waves and can snatch a Higgs boson out of the ether: mistakes do happen. Non-fatal though we pray, the public is very forgiving when the best efforts to deliver basic nursing care are made and that is the clear intent. This is why we are told if someone makes a complaint deal with it as quickly as possible.
The real deal isn't 'new'. It's the social and political contract called 'NHS'.
Without the necessary gravity assist students may not see, and may not hear what they should be sensitive to. Examples publicised in reports such as this (15 February 2011), by Health Service Ombudsman Ann Abraham shame us all.
Self awareness is a complex thing (rapport, reflection, empathy, emotional intelligence...). Self awareness is not a given. You have to check the switch is there, then be able to help them switch it on, and validate it - for the good of all. Failing that? Well - being prepared to fail a student too if you have to.
