Real-life story - Kavitha Thangavelu
Kavitha is a general practice nurse that enjoys what she does. She works in a multi-disciplinary team to help patients make choices that promote a healthy lifestyle.
What I do
My role as a practice nurse involves a varied amount of jobs such as doing consultations, carrying out physical examinations and investigations within my clinical role. Collecting samples from patients including swabs, specimens, cervical smear. Also monitor pulse, temperature, respiration rate and blood pressure.
My role also includes providing patients with advice about contraception, health conditions and healthy lifestyles. I treat wounds, apply and remove dressings and provide emergency first aid treatment. I administer immunisations and do vaccinations. I also liaise with other healthcare professionals such as health care assistants and GPs to record and keep patient notes up to date.
The best bits and challenges
As a practice nurse, I enjoy delivering holistic and person-centred care. Moreover, I enjoy diagnosing and treating minor health conditions which reduce the need for hospital admissions and improves a patient's quality of life
As a nurse in general practice, there are great career progspects for me inlcluding the opportunity to experience and improve my skills in different aspects of primary care and health promotion. General practice is the right place where you can learn about different aspects of care. Prevention is better than cure - being a practice nurse allows me to promote health to the patients that I come in contact with and this allows me to help them in their choices leading to healthy lifestyles.