life eh!

[cwhaley]

Further education, should be an adjunct to the career you are already in and earning from, rather than further education as a first step on the ladder.

Said that about nursing!

My wife is a fantastic nurse and goes way beyond her job spec every day. Although her course was free, she had to do three years of university first which was not done in the past. She didn't enjoy it and didn't want to be up at night writing dissertations or theorising alternative practices -- she wanted to be on the wards/out in the community learning how to be a nurse from other nurses!

The placement she had at a community hospital eventually offered her a job where - 8 years later - she remains.

If a nurse wanted to take nursing to a higher level, or to go into management or a more scientific level, then taking a course at university in nursing seems the next logical step.

 

[SUNRAY]

It seems we should tell customers the advantage of fitting a SPD and fit them as default, but the customer can say no I don't want one fitted, since not personal protection but equipment protection they can opt not to have them fitted.

The problem is I am not convinced we need them, so how can I convince some one else?

I'm still not convinced that the way we are supposed to install them they are even capable of doing much to save the equipment.

 

[ericmark]

I'm still not convinced that the way we are supposed to install them they are even capable of doing much to save the equipment.

This also my feeling, we are told we need to assess the risk, so in the 50 years I have needed to replace equipment when it has failed other than TV stuff where likely the spike came down the aerial, very little seems to have failed due to spikes.

In my parents house as a boy I had two nasty electricial shocks, and in my own house one, with the latter there was RCD protection, and the other two were line - neutral so RCD would not have helped.

I fitted RCD's in early 90's due to son becoming a radio ham at 14 and wanting to protect him. But although I am sure a good idea, and can see why a company should be forced to protect their work force or landlord his tenants, it seems to be going OTT to force anyone to protect themselves, suicide is no longer a crime, and we can climb mountains etc. So home owners should be allowed to make their own mind up.

 

[JohnW2]

Said that about nursing! ... My wife is a fantastic nurse and goes way beyond her job spec every day. Although her course was free, she had to do three years of university first which was not done in the past. She didn't enjoy it and didn't want to be up at night writing dissertations or theorising alternative practices -- she wanted to be on the wards/out in the community learning how to be a nurse from other nurses!

Indeed - but I think it comes down primarily to 'money'.

My wife (and her mother before her) also trained as a nurse (and I think was a very good one), but that was "in the (distant) past", when university degrees were certainly not part of the equation. She did her 3 years 'apprenticeship', primarily 'on the wards', with just the occasional 2-3 week session of academic 'classroom work', to provide the required (relatively small) amount of 'background understanding'.

However, the role of 'fully trained' nurses (i.e. "State Registered Nurses", "SRNs") has changed out of all recognition since then. They are now 'half-trained' (probably more like 'three-quarters-trained') doctors and are being (successfully) used as such, but are paid an awful lot less than doctors. On the few occasions I have visited my GP's surgery in recent years, I've been seen by a "Nurse Practitioner" but, even with my 'inside knowledge', I would not have realised that they weren't doctors had it not been for their 'name badges'.

Today, if one actually wants to do ('bedside') nursing in the traditional sense (like my wife did, and your wanted to do) the great majority of that role is now undertaken by (minimally trained) "Health Care Assistants" or suchlike, who are seeming paid (hence cost the NHS) next-to-nothing

In those 'days of old', there were also "SENs" (State Enrolled Nurses) who had even less academic training (and fewer 'academic' entry requirements) than SRNs who did truly 'bedside nursing'. They were 'phased out' a long time ago, but I think I've heard of some proposals to 'bring them back' - but, even if that happens, I suspect they will probably be paid 'very little'.

Kind Regards, John

 

[SUNRAY]

This also my feeling, we are told we need to assess the risk, so in the 50 years I have needed to replace equipment when it has failed other than TV stuff where likely the spike came down the aerial, very little seems to have failed due to spikes.

In my parents house as a boy I had two nasty electricial shocks, and in my own house one, with the latter there was RCD protection, and the other two were line - neutral so RCD would not have helped.

I fitted RCD's in early 90's due to son becoming a radio ham at 14 and wanting to protect him. But although I am sure a good idea, and can see why a company should be forced to protect their work force or landlord his tenants, it seems to be going OTT to force anyone to protect themselves, suicide is no longer a crime, and we can climb mountains etc. So home owners should be allowed to make their own mind up.

Your son being a radio ham will likely be able to explain why they are unlikely to protect from spikes.

Chances are any effective protection offered will trip the MCB which will go unnoticed for days and therefore any subsequent protection is not offered... I have deliberately not put a definitive number of days in there as it's quite likely to be up to 3650 at the next inspection or is that more likely to be 9125?

I've had 2 situations of overvoltage problems:
My first house being a 1920's property and the 1st or 2nd on the run, my house was number 73 and the far end also fed part of another street so I'll say >50 houses of the same age. I purchased as a refurb job, initially spent best part of a year not living there but lighting being 'portable' bulb holders on long flex. I was getting through bulbs like they were going out of fashion and didn't believe it was all mechanical damage. Measured the voltage of well over 250V. Complained and SEEBoard fitted a pen recorder which I took to be set up for 200-300V, I saw peaks off the scale. Took the paper roll to work and photocopied chunks of it. After they had recovered the recorder a discussion with an engineer, he admitted they had a volt drop issue on the ancient feed and even explained most houses has likely had 30A fuses originally. They supplied a mixed box of rough service bulbs to keep me going until they were able to add another cable to create a ring main.

Where I am now we has several items fail, when the TV was repaired under the extended warranty for a 3rd time I checked again saw too high supply voltage, SEEBoard checked my installation including my Wylex fusebox (and broke the heads on 2 screws) declared there were no problems then while they checked the sub I watched it drop to around 240V. They returned and declared nothing wrong anywhere but no more failures after that...

Other than a failed neutral along the road and a couple of blackouts no problems for 25 years.

 

[JohnD]

I suspect they will probably be paid 'very little'.

By amazing coincidence, jobs traditionally done by women have traditionally been paid less than jobs done by men.

Traditionally, Doctors were mostly men and Nurses mostly women.

Today, however, the GP register, women outnumber men with over 43 thousand female GPs for 35 thousand male GPs.
(2021 figures)

Out of the 354 thousand registered doctors in the United Kingdom, 186 thousand were men and 168 thousand women

The boys still hang on to most of Specialists jobs.

 

[JohnW2]

What about fairies and Father Christmas?

[at least the title of this thread doesn't pretend that it has anything to do with 'Electrics' - but if the mods move it to 'that other place', I will stop contributing ! ]

Yes, there are many examples of things that most of us would regard as 'obvious'. Father Christmas is probably fairly straightforward, since we know that it is 'man-made fiction'. Fairies are a bit less straightforward, in that there are (or have been) people who genuinely believe that they have 'seen fairies', and I doubt that anyone knows enough to be able to definitely refute that.

Religion, in its broadest sense, is 'rather more difficult' (perhaps one of my greatest understatements!)! At risk of offending some people, I would say that all of the 'formal regions' are 'clearly nonsense', not the least because, no matter which one is considered, the implication is that billions of people 'believe in' some other religion which is 'wrong' - and similarly in relation to notions about 'human-like entities with white beards in the clouds' etc. etc.

However, moving essentially to the philosophical, we have far to little understanding of issues such as where the Laws of Physics (hence the universe) 'came from', what, if anything (other than random processes), determines/controls what happens within the universe and what 'consciousness' and 'self' are all about etc. etc. etc. ... and the answers to some of those questions, if we ever find them, could support some sort of concept that could be broadly be described as 'religion'.

Philosophers have struggled with these issues 'for ever', and will probably continue so to do!!

That's what Tomorrow's World did. I don't think people -
dismissed the suggestion as being 'beyond all credibility and common sense

Tomorrow's World (and others) certainly tried, but I doubt that many people regarded it as more than 'science fiction'. Don't forget that we are talking of the era when IBM, a pretty respected company, made the pronouncement (that they probably came to regret ) that "it was inconceivable that there would ever be a global market for more than about 10,000 computers"

Anyway, maybe I picked the wrong point in time for my comment. If one turns the clock back a few more decades, to the days when there was little/no 'electronics', and certainly no 'microelectronics', then I imagine that the world of the 2020s would have been ';beyond all credibility' to most people.

Kind Regards, John

 

[JohnW2]

By amazing coincidence, jobs traditionally done by women have traditionally been paid less than jobs done by men.

That's true as a fact. but I think people don't necessarily pay enough attention to the 'chicken and egg' aspect of this. One can equally say that "jobs which were traditionally poorly paid traditionally attracted fewer men than women, since men felt the need to have an income adequate to support a family".

In context, in the 'days of old' we're talking about very few men entered nursing (other than as 'psychiatric nurses' - see below **!), partially because they didn't want it to be assumed that they were gay (!!) but mainly because a nurses' pay was not considered enough 'to support a family

[** 'psychiatric nurses' in those days were quite often ex-prison warders! ! ]

Traditionally, Doctors were mostly men and Nurses mostly women.

Very true. The above offers at least some explanation as to why few men were nurses. As for doctors, it was presumably primarily a question of 'tradition', which meant that few girls would even consider the possibility of training in medicine. Furthermore, in those days relatively few girls had secondary school education (i.e. A-Levels) in relevant (science-related) subjects. I was educated in a single-sex school and when I was in the 6th form, a couple of girls from our 'sister school' had to come to us to do science A-Levels (so they could apply to medical schools) because their schools did not have the required lab facilities (and maybe not even teachers).

Today, however, the GP register, women outnumber men with over 43 thousand female GPs for 35 thousand male GPs. 2021 figures) Out of the 354 thousand registered doctors in the United Kingdom, 186 thousand were men and 168 thousand women

Your figures are a little misleading. Whilst your figures for 'registered doctors in 2021' (354,000 total) are correct, they include a vast number who had retired, emigrated or didn't work for the NHS (but have retained their 'registration'). In November 2022, there were 'just' 132,900 doctors working for the NHS, of which about 47% were female.

...but, yes, there has been a massive change in the gender of doctors. When I started my 'further education' (in 1967) female medical students were quite a novelty (I would guess well under 10%) and they tended to be 'high flyers', since old-school traditional doctors tended to set the bar very high for accepting female applicants!

In dramatic contrast, within a decade or so many medical schools had adopted a policy of trying to have 50% female students. That tended to reverse the previous situation since, at least initially, kt meant they were looking for more female students that there were applicant - so they then had to 'set the bar very low' (academically) for females

The boys still hang on to most of Specialists jobs.

I haven't looked at the figures, but that's not really my current experience. I constantly deal with a lot of 'specialist' doctors, and a very substantial proportion are female. ... and it's not just doctors, the same is true of 'scientists', mathematicians/statisticians and many other disciplines (indeed, including engineers, lorry drivers, airline pilots, fire fighters and many many more)

Having said all that, I'm not quite sure what point you were trying to make

Kind Regards, John

 

[cwhaley]

Indeed - but I think it comes down primarily to 'money'.

My wife (and her mother before her) also trained as a nurse (and I think was a very good one), but that was "in the (distant) past", when university degrees were certainly not part of the equation. She did her 3 years 'apprenticeship', primarily 'on the wards', with just the occasional 2-3 week session of academic 'classroom work', to provide the required (relatively small) amount of 'background understanding'.

However, the role of 'fully trained' nurses (i.e. "State Registered Nurses", "SRNs") has changed out of all recognition since then. They are now 'half-trained' (probably more like 'three-quarters-trained') doctors and are being (successfully) used as such, but are paid an awful lot less than doctors. On the few occasions I have visited my GP's surgery in recent years, I've been seen by a "Nurse Practitioner" but, even with my 'inside knowledge', I would not have realised that they weren't doctors had it not been for their 'name badges'.

Today, if one actually wants to do ('bedside') nursing in the traditional sense (like my wife did, and your wanted to do) the great majority of that role is now undertaken by (minimally trained) "Health Care Assistants" or suchlike, who are seeming paid (hence cost the NHS) next-to-nothing

In those 'days of old', there were also "SENs" (State Enrolled Nurses) who had even less academic training (and fewer 'academic' entry requirements) than SRNs who did truly 'bedside nursing'. They were 'phased out' a long time ago, but I think I've heard of some proposals to 'bring them back' - but, even if that happens, I suspect they will probably be paid 'very little'.

Kind Regards, John

Pretty much everything you've said is what I've listened to my wife telling me since she started!

I remember during the Covid times, the GPs (at least in our local Trust) refused to do home visits and delegated to the nurses many of their roles. Unsurprisingly many of those roles remain as a permanent responsibility.

HCAs are absolutely critical and their role is underpaid and underappreciated! Some of them Mrs. Whaley works alongside walk miles and miles every day to get to patients because they own nor a car nor a bike, so just walk everywhere and they endure a lot of abuse. I will say though, that nurses in the community still do the grisly, 'nasty' traditional jobs.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Yes, there are many examples of things that most of us would regard as 'obvious'. Father Christmas is probably fairly straightforward, since we know that it is 'man-made fiction'.

No Chrissie pressies for you then

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Tomorrow's World (and others) certainly tried, but I doubt that many people regarded it as more than 'science fiction'.

I viewed it mostly as science fact - many of the things demonstrated, were in early prototype stage, many more fell by the wayside.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Your figures are a little misleading. Whilst your figures for 'registered doctors in 2021' (354,000 total) are correct, they include a vast number who had retired, emigrated or didn't work for the NHS (but have retained their 'registration'). In November 2022, there were 'just' 132,900 doctors working for the NHS, of which about 47% were female.

At a guess, I cannot check at the moment, but our local surgery seems to have around 80% female doctors, and 100% female nurses.

 

[JohnW2]

I viewed it mostly as science fact - many of the things demonstrated, were in early prototype stage, many more fell by the wayside.

Yes, I suppose we understood that it was 'science fact' but I doubt that many of us thought that many of the things were going to happen within our lifetimes or, indeed, within the next few generations, if ever.

To call something 'science fiction' is definitely not to dismiss or undervalue it. A lot of it has been amazingly good prediction on the part of very insightful thinkers. Given the astronomical rate of technological advances in some fields, we are probably becoming much more open-minded about what the future might hold (although we obviously don't necessarily know 'what?'), but I think that human nature is such that there will alwys be a limit (at any point in time) to which our sense of 'credibility' cold be stretched.

Do you think, for example (thinking of Star Trek), that it is 'credible' that it will ever be possible to cure people of their cancer, heart disease or traumatic injuries etc. etc. simply by pointing at them something which resembles a TV remote control? I accept that, in many senses,' very little is impossible', but .... !! [such a happening would certainly impact on the 'job security' of doctors and nurses ]

Kind Regards, John

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Do you think, for example (thinking of Star Trek), that it is 'credible' that it will ever be possible to cure people of their cancer, heart disease or traumatic injuries etc. etc. simply by pointing at them something which resembles a TV remote control? I accept that, in many senses,' very little is impossible', but .... !! [such a happening would certainly impact on the 'job security' of doctors and nurses ]

Not in those exact forms, but I understand they are already doing robotic surgery.

I suppose, like most people, I am finding it more and more difficult to keep up with modern advances, at the rate they come along.

 

[JohnD]

Do you think, for example (thinking of Star Trek),

That one day people will be able to carry in their shirt pocket a device capable of communicating instantly with any other person on almost any part of the planet? With more computing power than used to fill an air conditioned building? With access to all human knowledge? And they will be so cheap that schoolchildren will have them? And so common that there will be more in the world than there are toilets?

And people will use them to look at cat videos.