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ProNurse Interviews: Bethann Siviter, bestselling author of the Student Nurse Handbook and The Newly Qualified Nurse’s Handbook.

The name Bethann Siviter will be familiar to many students and nurses. Her books have played a vital role as they bridge the gap between the theory of nursing courses and the vital ‘on the ground’ knowledge that usually only comes with experience.

Here Bethann talks about the inspiration behind writing the books and the way her original concepts were dismissed as ‘a load of rubbish’.

PN: We get lots of messages on ProNurse from our student members who are excited, yet apprehensive, about an upcoming stage of their course. Your Student Nurse Handbook fills the gap between knowing what you are going to do and knowing how to do it. Was there just one situation that inspired you to write the book or many? And was it conceived from your own experiences or from those of fellow students too?

BS: When I came to the UK from the US I was an experienced nurse but they didn’t recognise my qualification so I had to become a nursing student yet again. It was the third time as I went first to nursing school, then left before my finals to go to medical school in the early eighties. But I hated it. I didn’t want to see people as a combination of chemicals; I wanted to see them as people with problems. When I went to finish my nursing, it was too late.

During the course I took in the UK there were some things that were not covered in the course that I knew as a nurse were important. I was in Project 2000 in this country and we spent more time on social policy than on nursing theory. Some of my friends who had the potential to be really good nurses were dropping off. They didn’t want to be social politicians they wanted to be nurses!

I wanted to do something that would give people some hope. I was travelling all over the country in my role as the Chair of the RCN Association of Nursing Students. Everywhere I went students were saying the same thing. They had no hope. I wanted to write something to give them the knowledge they needed to “hit the ground running” rather than leaving them to learn it the hard way. To give them some hope and to tell them it would be okay.

PN. This is very similar to the questions and queries we get on the forums of ProNurse.

BS: Absolutely. They don’t want to make a mistake that is going to hurt somebody. They want to know how to keep the qualities that they went into nursing to use and they want to hear that it’s going to be okay.

PN: Was there one particular situation that really made you decide to write the book?

BS: It started through my work with the Association of Nursing Students. We were arguing about bursaries, student status and protected status and all the things that were changing in 2001 and 2002. I wrote a little booklet and I wanted the RCN to publish it but the Marketing Director at the time said it was a load of rubbish! Luckily, one of the advisors put me in touch with Elsevier Publishing who wanted someone with a US background to look at an American nursing book to see if it would sell in the UK. I told them that it would not work as it was not British enough, but I sent them the little book that I had written. They quickly responded asking “How soon can you get this done with the full text?”!

I was doing my Bachelors degree at the time and they wanted it completed in a year. I thought there was no way that I could do it in a year, but I did it anyway, because it meant so much to me to get it out there to students who needed it! I did all the cartoons too as I wanted it to be light-hearted and funny. Those cartoons are not very professional as I have improved a lot as a cartoonist since then, but I wanted it to be me. I thought that students will learn better if they had a person telling them it was going to be okay rather than a book that preached and was all academic.

PN: You’ve written a well researched book that has an accessible conversational style. Was it difficult to know when to stop? Was it tempting to try and cram in more information and personal anecdotes?

BS: Thankfully my publisher carries a big stick. Having a good publisher and a good editor is essential. The book was outlined so I knew how many words I had for each section. I wanted to put enough of me in it so people could tell that it was real, but I didn’t want it just to be about me, it had to be a professional book too. I included an anecdote from other people at the beginning of every chapter, but there was a limit as to how many anecdotes I could put in. Anyone who has ever listened to me give a seminar say they can hear me when they read the book after that. The publisher has found a lot of success with the accessibility of my book and has encouraged other authors to write in that way as it is easier to digest the material.

PN: You have almost set up a new genre!

BS: Well, they do apparently tell people to ‘Siviter’ the text! I think this is pretty funny considering the original response to my work from people who were not interested as it was not in the scientific writing style!

PN: Was there one area that was the hardest to write?

BS: The Tools of the Trade section as it is very difficult to talk about the very dry aspects of nursing such as organisation, delegation, prioritisation and time management. I tried to create a tool box, rather than a list of things, but it was the part that I enjoyed the least. It’s a very important part but it is not the fun part! The best part is talking to the patient, but you’ve still got to do the paperwork.

PN: The Newly Qualified Nurse’s Handbook is an interesting concept as an outsider would think that after three or fours years of study and placements, a new nurse should find their first job relatively easy. The discussions in our forums show this is not the case! What part of the book do you think is the most important part for newly qualified nurses to learn and follow?

BS: It is definitely Reflection. You have reflection drilled into you so much during the course that you are so sick of it when you leave that you don’t want to do it anymore. However, if you don’t continuously look at what you do every day you are going to fall into bad patterns. Before you know it you are getting burnt out and doing the wrong things and making the wrong decisions. Especially when you are new. I don’t believe that the real world is very different to the one at university and students have to keep hold of what they were taught.

In the second part of the interview Bethann describes her negative experiences of nurses while she was a patient and how we can prevent poor nursing standards-.

Bethann would like to stress that the opinions raised during this interview are her own and not that of her publishers, or employer.

Both The Student Nurse Handbook: a Survival Guide and The Newly Qualified Nurse’s Handbook: A Survival Guide are available on Amazon.

Bethann is a member of ProNurse so you can network with her via her profile or ask her some questions via her Bethann’s Student and New Nurse Sanctuary group here on ProNurse.

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