Nursing Students Speak at RCN Congress
Two third year Adult Nursing students from the School of Nursing, Alisha Poole and Chloe Isted, recently spoke at the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) Congress. Learn more about their experiences of the day.
The first day of RCN Congress had us hooked. We listened to inspiring speeches by many professionals and we both understood exactly why people are so fond of this event.
For the very first time we were surrounded by a group of health professionals where each and every one of them wanted to influence change of the health care system for the better. The enthusiasm and passion was infectious and inspiring. We listened to many debates that demonstrated critical thinking of many important issues in health care today; from whether or not student placement hours should be cut down, to parity of esteem for people with mental health issues, to nurses pay.
The enthusiasm and passion was infectious and inspiring.
We felt so inspired and confident that our opinions would be well received that we even got up to the podium in front of 4,000 people to contribute to the debate. Chloe spoke in the student placement hours debate and Alisha spoke in the parity of esteem debate. It was a terrifying yet empowering experience and we are both glad we challenged ourselves to do this.
The debates taught us that issues are not black and white, there are more complex factors involved and you have to listen to all sides of the story so you can form an opinion. This enabled us to think about the academic work we currently have and how we could transfer this learning to be more critical. It also helped us to think about how we come across out in practice, we decided that we would use this passion that had infected us and go into our placements spreading knowledge, information and enthusiasm.
We felt so inspired and confident that our opinions would be well received that we even got up to the podium in front of 4000 people to contribute to debate.
The social events were great fun and gave us a good opportunity to get talking to other professionals across the UK. It was great to network and we have both made some friends that we look forward to seeing next year!
Returning home from Congress had us feeling more determined and passionate than ever to be a voice of nursing and to facilitate positive change. We felt empowered to inform our student peers and colleagues so that they too can make positive changes within the health care system and reassure them that their voices should be heard. It has reminded us how important it is to support your peers.
We felt empowered to inform our student peers and colleagues so that they too can make positive changes within the health care system
From this, we both signed up to become a Student Information Officers for the RCN, so that we can inform our class and students at university of any new information from the RCN. As student representatives for our class, we will continue to be the voice for not only our peers, but for our patients too. It has reminded us why we chose to become nurses, because we are both passionate about people and the quality of care that they receive.
Find out more about RCN Congress