Interview and Photography by Danny Calvi
28-year-old Tiberiu came to London from Constanța — Romania’s most ancient city, situated on the coast of the Black Sea — to study Psychology at Goldsmiths. He’s now in his second year of nursing school, gaining experience in a local hospital. When he’s not learning the ropes in the orthopaedic trauma ward, he’s making ends meet by working as court interpreter. Yeah, Tiberiu speaks Romanian, English, Italian, Spanish and a bit of French.
Danny: Besides being a nurse, what can one do with a nursing degree?
Tiberiu: I guess you could go into private care, or you could also become a rescue nurse.
Is that like a traveling nurse…
Yeah. An insurance company might cover someone on holiday who is injured and needs a nurse to bring them back. Basically, you pick them up, put them on the plane and deliver them to their doctor in their home country. Also as a nurse, you can specialize, or become a doctor even.
Did you ever want to be a doctor?
When I was a child, I had my tonsils removed and apparently, when I got back from the hospital, I started to operate on all the dolls. Because plastic dolls don’t have tonsils, I used to cut through and pull their eyes out from inside.
Who is hotter, doctors or nurses?
Doctors…
Why?
Because of the, you know, hierarchy. And doctors are hotter because they know more.
Is there a high demand for male nurses?
There is because men tend to be physically stronger, and nursing can involve a lot of heavy lifting. You lift patients all the time, transferring them from bed to chair, for instance. They really rely on you physically.
Is that all men bring to the field of nursing? Physical strength…
They are a bit calmer as well.
As a student nurse, are you expected to do everything that nurses do?
I cannot administer medication, for example, or give injections. I can’t put anything in a vein, although I’d really like to.
What do you mean, you’d really like to?
I like penetrating veins. When you get a perky vein, it’s a really nice sensation to put the needle into it and see the blood rushing out.
Do you ever find yourself inserting catheters? Is that painful?
To take them out is not painful, but maybe it’s unpleasant to have them put in. The catheter is lubricated with water-based lube. It must be a relief to get it out. The sensation of the catheter coming out of your cock must be something.
If you watch something like, Nurse Jackie, it seems like it’s really easy for nurses to access controlled substances… Is it really like that?
It can be. It’s easier for a nurse to get access to drugs than it is for a doctor. The doctor can prescribe medication, but nurses run the wards, and hold the keys to the room where the controlled medication is. Basically, you need two nurses to access the room where all the goodies are. That includes cocaine and ketamine…
There’s cocaine in the hospital?
Yeah, of course. You use it in surgery, especially plastic surgery. It’s a vasoconstrictor so it reduces bleeding. It’s also a topical anesthetic. Ketamine is probably the first choice if you have a roadside accident. In that situation, they would tend to give you ketamine because not only is it an an anesthetic, it’s also an anxiolytic — it takes away any anxiety. So if you’re missing a limb, you won’t really care about that when you’re on ketamine. It’s also used in surgery sometimes. There are patients who have bad reactions to morphine, for example, and they are given ketamine. Some patients don’t like the mild hallucinogenic effects though.
What do you see in this inkblot?
Well, that’s easy. It’s a chimera. A badger with atrophied arms and a troll’s body with a huge, snail-like cock.
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