I was given the opportunity to shadow a nursery nurse on my first day of practice to do a hearing screening on a seven year old boy at the local school within my clinical practice tutor’s workload. On arrival, we were checked by the school reception staff that gave us clearance to access the school and provided us with a quiet room to perform the hearing screening. The nursery nurse set up the equipment and briefly explained to me how it worked and why we were doing it. She highlighted that prior to any care episode, it was vital to obtain consent from the parents which she had done before visiting the school. She then went to the classroom to get the boy. To abide by the Nursing and Midwifery Code of Conduct confidentiality legislation, a pseudonym will be used to name the service user. Jack came into the room with the nursery nurse; I introduced myself to him and smiled at him to welcome him in.
On observation, he was well dressed, neat and tidy. However, he appeared shy and quiet. I tried to engage him in conversation, asking him how he was and how his day had been but he replied with one worded answers such as “fine”. I smiled warmly at him and sat down whilst the nursery nurse explained to him what she had to do, how the equipment worked and offered him if he would like to trial it before starting. He nodded and we proceeded. She asked him if he would like to clap when he heard the noise and he agreed so she proceeded.
When the trial hearing test started, he did not respond to any of the sounds and the nursery nurse had to keep prompting him and ask him whether he could hear the noise. He replied that he could however he was not signalling to her that he could. I then asked him if he would prefer to use another signal perhaps a thumbs up. He smiled and agreed. We proceeded with the trial again, and did respond, however, his ‘thumbs up’…
