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Wednesday 20 March 2013

Probation Period is Up!

...
Good lord - where the hell did the last month go!?

Where do I even start?   Oh, right!  Of course!  My probation period is officially up.

I'm being kept on - woohoo!  They like me, they think I've got great potential and more than happy to keep me on.

The past three months have just flown by.  Being back in full time work has proven both satisfying and exhausting (although my stamina appears to be gradually improving).  I've just done three late nights on the trot ... and pick tonight of all nights to throw a blog post together ... yeah, I'm logical that way.

I've certainly learnt an awful lot - it's almost hard to imagine that I knew sod all on my first day.  Now I'm assisting with check-ups, mixing filling materials, helping to make impression molds and lots of other stuff.

In addition to learning the ropes, I've had a promotion of sorts.  I was hired as a 'floating' nurse - someone who primarily works at collecting, cleaning and re-distributing used instruments for the nurses who work in surgery full time with a dentist.  About a month ago, one such nurse up and quit.   Thanks to her, I have now have a surgery all of my own and have been teamed up with a dentist.

Thus I now have more responsibility in keeping the surgery stocked, cleaned and prepped, as well as having a lot more practice at chair-side nursing than I could have hoped to gain whilst remaining a 'floating' nurse.

Now that the probation stint is over, I now have to get myself booked onto a dental nursing course.  There are various training centres around the country, but unfortunately for me, none are within a reasonable travelling distance that don't insist on holding the course during work hours - which doesn't help me or (potentially) two other trainees who would need to attend.   The dental practice is a business - having two or three members of staff out once a week, every week, for a year, isn't remotely practical.

So I'm looking into correspondence courses at the moment.  Contacted a few providers, and at least one of them looks fairly promising.  I just need to locate a functioning printer so I can print off the information pack I've been sent.

With any luck I'll be starting work on my qualification before too long.