[Margaret Pilkington]

What those university trained nurse do not have is EXPERIENCE.
When you have watched someone who was a nice respectable man get violent in the middle of the night…..and yet all his vital signs are within normal limits…..when he tries to climb over the cot side(put there for his safety)….when you see him rip the cannula that is giving him a blood transfusion from his arm…..and you do not know why this is all happening.
A good consultant comes along…whips him off to theatre and saves him from ‘bleeding out’…you really understand how lack of oxygen to the brain can affect someone……(and this was my experience as a second year student on night duty) you never ever forget it.
And that is the difference.
Those University qualified nurses may have the text book learning, but it does not compare to actually seeing and experiencing events in a patients life.