Joanne Hardy

Student life - A comforting presence: Staff nurse Joanne Hardy offers advice to students on the importance of being ‘visible’ to patients

It is easy for nursing students to underestimate their potential for making patients feel secure and cared for simply by their presence. Most patients, particularly those who are older or limited in their movement, tend to feel less anxious when they know there is a nurse nearby.

What to expect from your mentor: Joanne Hardy outlines the basics

For the student-mentor relationship to be effective, each must acknowledge a responsibility to the other.

Student life - dealing with differences: If you fall out with colleagues on placement, there are ways to make things better, says Joanne Hardy

Many students enjoy the opportunity to experience placements in a variety of areas, meeting new people, working with them and learning from them. The downside is that you may run into people who you do not see eye to eye with.

Learning curve: Be careful of the language you use with patients – they may not understand it, writes Joanne Hardy

In the first handover I sat through, the staff may as well have been speaking a foreign language. There was so much specialist medical terminology that I had no idea what was wrong with the patients or what was being done about it.

Starting out Joanne Hardy found patients sometimes just want a cuddle

Many nursing textbooks list touch as a valuable form of therapeutic communication, but I rarely see it used in practice. I have worked on placements in many areas but I hardly ever see nurses touching patients just as a way to comfort or reassure them.