Employment

I started working at UHNBC as a licensed practical nurse in spring this year. University Hospital of Northern British Colombia (UHNBC) is the largest level 3 hospital in Northern British Columbia. It has acute care, cancer care, and trauma center with 219 beds. UHNBC is a teaching hospital that supports the Northern Medical Program, a joint medical program by the UBC Faculty of Medicine and University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC) for training of doctors and nurses.

UHNBC has different departments such as Emergency, Pediatric, Psychiatric, Surgery, Family Medicine Unit, Internal Medicine Unit, Maternity Unit, Pharmacy, Short Stay Unit, Cancer Unit, Trauma Center and Physiotherapy. I work in Adult Psychiatry and Withdrawal Unit. It is a 20 bed unit where we work as a team which includes doctors, psychiatrists, team lead, nurses, clinicians, social workers, health care attendants, psychologists, nurse educators and counselors.

Although it is a very busy place, we manage well to handle the workload. We start a work day by listening to the daily tape report. After that we start our nursing round of the unit to make sure that everyone is on the unit. The next step is to give medications to the patients, do vital signs and then touch base with each patient that is assigned to each of us. Around 12 o'clock doctors start their patient interviews and we attend them with doctors. Then we get new orders from doctors and update them. We also make appointments for patients, as well as discharge and admit them.

In my department, staff is really helpful and cooperative. Each day is a new learning day. Each day we face new challenges and we try our best to handle them as team members following our team leader. We have two coffee breaks, lunch and supper break. There are different groups run in our department to utilize the time of clients such as occupational therapy group, relaxation group, coffee meeting, self-esteem group, games and community meeting.

At the end of the day we do computer documentation, Kardex paper or written charting and verbal tape report. I love my profession and I love my workplace even though it is very busy and hectic sometimes.