How to prepare for your Nursing and Midwifery course

Reading and Research

Other than our Nursing and Midwifery blog, there are a few books and journals you can read to get clued up on your course.

An anatomy and physiology book is a great start to your reading, as you’ll be learning a lot about the human body and how it works throughout your course. A great book for beginners is Ross and Wilson: Anatomy and Physiology in Health and Illness by Allison Wynn Grant, Anne Waugh, and Kathleen J. W. Wilson. Other than this, any reading you can do on the cardiac and respiratory systems will be greatly valuable.

For further academic reading, journals we suggest are the Nursing Times, Nursing Standard, and Journal of Community Nursing.

Professional standards of practice and behaviour for nurses, midwives, and nursing associates is an important read, and comes directly from the Nursing and Midwifery Council, who accredit all of our Nursing courses. As well as this, the Royal College of Nursing also offers an extremely helpful list of top tips for new nursing students.

Student midwives will want to subscribe to the Practising Midwife website, or other journals such as the British Journal of Midwifery.

Watch

The BBC series ‘Life and Birth’ features BCU lecturer Ruby Handley-Stone as well as other midwives and lecturers from around our linked clinical trusts in Birmingham. The show follows midwives as they care for mothers and their newborn babies, focusing on different cases each episode. It’s a great watch if you want to get a feel for life on a maternity ward, as you will be experiencing similar situations during your placement and eventually your working life, just like Ruby who is a graduate of our Midwifery degree, combining working as a practising midwife and teaching at the University.

If you want to find out more about life as a student nurse at BCU specifically, we know exactly who to watch! Claire Carmichael is an ex-BCU student who studied Nursing with us. She runs her own YouTube channel where she vlogs about nursing life and has even made educational nursing videos. Her videos range from assignment tips, university life, and how to prepare for placements, to informative videos about blood pressure, breast screening, and transgender healthcare.

Follow

There are several Twitter accounts you can follow to keep up to date with Nursing and Midwifery news:

@BCUNursingteam – general Twitter for all nursing courses

@BCUMidwives – Midwifery on Instagram and Twitter

@BCU_LDnursing - Learning Disability Twitter

@BCU_CYPnursing - Children and Young People Nursing Twitter