EXAMINER'S COMMENTS

Kai Tiaki : the journal of the nurses of New Zealand, Volume XV, Issue 3, 1 July 1922, Page 101

EXAMINER'S COMMENTS

The same comments apply to faults examination after examination — like the poor, they are always with us. Candidates should first of all carefully read through the paper, and take a bird's-eye view before they come down to earth for a closer view. In a general way they can formulate a scheme for dealing with a troublesome and sometimes painful situation. This will prevent them from giving too much time to a portion of the paper, and the clock or their watch should warn them to apportion their time fairly. It is a sad sight to see four questions well answered and the last two questons never touched. To write " Time's up" after the fourth question is answered is a self-accu-sation. Candidates should answer only

what is asked and should not prescribe treatment. They should be concise, and pay more attention to the special points in nursing a particular case than to the general routine which applies to every case. In the June examination the question on surgical shock was answered very creditably. It was not necessary in this answer to describe minutely the technique of intravenous injection of saline and other surgical procedures. This question lent itself to a tabulated answer, and not to a general discursive treatment. The second question related to hydatids, and the answers were disappointing and meagre, generally speaking. It is a question which might be supposed to come within the range of general knowledge. Some thought Irydatids are germs, others insects, and one candidate said they are due to emboli.. Hydatids are like bird's eggs according to one answer, and to avoid them people should be careful not to smell a doig's breath, or to play with cats. I was also informed that hydatids resulted from dog-bites, or from a dog breathing into a person's face. If a dog bit a man and then breathed into the man's face and gave him hydatids it would surely be adding insult to injury. In the list of instruments it was surprising to find enumerated a lithotrite for crushing the stones in the hydatid cyst. The third question on the nursing of a fractured femur provided generally too much information outside the province of a nurse. The fourth question on the preparation of the patient and after-treatment of total * hysterectomy and haemorrhoids was answered by most candidates at great length. Why they should have concentrated their attack on this question is a mystery. The third question on the nursing of ophthalmic goitre was answered generally very well indeed, and it was pleasant 'to find the salient points well emphasised. The question was a good test of the capacity and knowledge of the nurses. I expected better all-round answers on prosta-

tectomy nursing than were forth-coming. Many of the answers were meagre and sketchy, probably because the candidates frequently allowed themselves insufficient time for the last question. The most glaring blunder in the examination was the statement that brandy and coffee could be passed through the abdominal drainage tube, but no doubt the candidate intended to say rectal tube. Similarly when it was stated that breakfast should be given an hour before the operation, a hyperdermic injection was intended. There is also a charitable explanation of the advice to give a saline injection into the bacillus vein.