{"id":8541,"date":"2023-04-06T09:00:01","date_gmt":"2023-04-06T08:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/students\/?p=8541"},"modified":"2023-04-05T09:28:46","modified_gmt":"2023-04-05T08:28:46","slug":"a-day-in-my-life-as-an-honorary-assistant-psychological-practitioner-in-london-nhs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/students\/2023\/04\/06\/a-day-in-my-life-as-an-honorary-assistant-psychological-practitioner-in-london-nhs\/","title":{"rendered":"A day in my life as an Honorary Assistant Psychological Practitioner in London NHS"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am a third-year psychology undergraduate student who is currently on a clinical placement at NHS. I know that many people, especially those who are aspiring clinical psychologists, are very curious about the day-to-day life of an NHS placement. Let me break it down for you!<\/p>\n

7:30-8:30<\/p>\n

I try to wake up earlier, allowing myself to have a great morning routine in order to start my day. I wake up at 7:30 to do some morning yoga and stretching, listening to some peaceful music. \u00a0I usually have overnight oatmeal or toast in the morning. I then take the tube to work. As there is no signal on London tube, I take this time to listen to music and read a book.<\/p>\n

9:00-10:00<\/p>\n

I would look at the incoming cases each morning and allocate them to different therapists. The referral can be self-referral via phone or website, GP referral or from other organisations like the crisis team. The amount varies from 20-40 cases every day. Each therapist is responsible for different areas in London, so I allocate cases according to patients\u2019 address and therapists\u2019 caseload limit.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

10:00-11:00<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>After the allocation, I am assigned to help 2-3 therapist summarize clinical notes. I write a summary for each patient including their demographic background, long-term condition, reason for referral, type of help they want, any risks from\/to others, previous episode (treatment and outcome). Clinicians then make the decision about the next step based on this quick summary.<\/p>\n

11:30-12:30<\/p>\n

I have to seek and arrange observation opportunities on my own. I email or ask therapists if it is possible for me to observe anything. For example, I may observe a telephone treatment. The therapist asks for consent from the patient and then puts the phone on loudspeaker. I observe how the assessment is conducted, what types of questions are ask, how does therapist respond and make notes etc.<\/p>\n

12:30-1:30<\/p>\n

I have lunch with my colleagues and other placement students at the hospital canteen. I normally bring my own lunch to save money. This is always a great chance to know more about the therapists personally and also asking for insights to this field.<\/p>\n

1:30-3:00<\/p>\n

I attend trainings or clinical skills sessions. This can be a training on how to conduct group therapy. For example, they may cover how to balance out dynamics in a group and how to be engaging.<\/p>\n

3:00-4:00<\/p>\n

I may observe some high-intensity treatment which are mostly face-to-face now. I bring my notebook and sit in the therapy room, observing how High-intensity therapist conduct their treatment.<\/p>\n

4:00-5:00\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I may watch some of the recorded therapy as this is easier for patient to give consent in comparison to sitting in the session. I have observed CBT on low self-esteem and worry management.<\/p>\n

6:00-7:00<\/p>\n

Although I am often tired after work, I try to go to the gym as often as I can. Clinical job can be very stressful because you listen to heavy and emotional problems every day. Running and working out helps me relieve my stress and also marking a clear boundary between work and my personal life. This is really important as it reminds me to let go of the work, I have done every day, maintaining my own wellbeing in the long term.<\/p>\n

I hope this snapshot of my daily placement life will give you more insight into the clinical field. I really enjoy my placement as I learn so much from all the observation. If all these sound interesting to you, I would definitely recommend trying a clinical placement!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am a third-year psychology undergraduate student who is currently on a clinical placement at NHS. I know that many people, especially those who are aspiring clinical psychologists, are very curious about the day-to-day life of an NHS placement. Let...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1748,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[310,1,198],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-placements","category-uncategorized","category-undergraduate"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/students\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/students\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/students\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/students\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1748"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/students\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/students\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8541\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/students\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/students\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/students\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}