Shifting Nurse Career Roles

When I originally made my List of Goals a few years ago it was largely due to feeling like I was trapped in my circumstances. At the time, I had recently split from my then husband and was adjusting to life on my own. The nursing job I was in had been so important to get when I did: it was in that moment that I would either continue with nursing or give it up forever.

I had originally applied for a Practice Nurse role because of the hours: Monday to Friday and 09:00 to 18:30. Very rarely to 20:00 or Saturdays. This schedule had fit perfectly with my ex-husband’s schedule and the family life I had been anticipating. So I will forever be grateful for the chance the managers took on me at the time.

After my ex-husband and I split, I began to feel trapped and restless in the Practice Nurse role I had. The Monday to Friday routine began to feel stiffling as my feet itched to travel with my new found freedom. I was already working on a Zero Hour contract basis, but the new Line Manager was putting a lot of pressure on me to commit to a strict working pattern. Instead of being open minded to a more flexible approach that could and would have benefitted everyone, I felt forced into a corner to commit or quit.

So I made the next big leap of my life in the first 6 months post-split: I went back into bedside nursing. I accepted a job in an acute care ward so I could go back to working nights and weekends, and could negotiate a more flexible working pattern.

It was possibly the most acute ward I could have applied, interviewed, and accepted to work on. It was literally jumping into the deep end and learning to swim. But I am also grateful for the managers who took a chance on me because I learned so much and I was able to do so much in my personal life during my time there.

Unfortunately, my life outside of work ended up distracting me from focusing on rebuilding my career: my mom was diagnosed with Stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer and my relationship with my current partner went through some equally challenging circumstances. At one point my manager said to me, “I wish I could know you without all the stress in your life, what you could achieve as nurse would be amazing.”

So after 12 months I left my new job to spend 2 months in Morocco before finally spending 4 months in Canada until my mom died. I spent another month in Morocco before finally heading back to the UK.

When I got back to the UK I needed money and I needed it fast. So I joined an agency. It was the the first time I ever worked for an agency or in the private health care sector. It’s been a weird place to be in during a pandemic: you’re the last to know about any policy changes or updates but you’re expected to know what’s happening on that ward like every other nurse. It’s like being thrown into the deep end over and over again.

I’m not going to lie, being able to earn a big lump sum of money has been nice after struggling for the last 8 years. But being very much left feeling like an outsider at work when you’re an outsider in your personal life has been difficult.

In the last little while I’ve been looking to get back into working with the NHS. I’m looking to rebuild my nursing career again. Or is rebuilding the best way to describe what I’m doing? Perhaps this is just another chapter in my ever evolving story of life?

I admit that I’ve de-skilled and forgotten many things since qualifying as a nurse, but you dont’ forget the basics: blood pressure, pulse, temperature, airway… I also feel like I’m capable of relearning and upskilling given the opportunity, even if my confidence isn’t where I need it to be.

I was asked recently what my specialty was, what “my thing” in nursing was. To be honest, I don’t have “a thing”. I’m as general and unspecific as it gets. By popular opinion, this is not an advantage. By my opinion, it is: I’m not hung up on a speciality or a way of doing things. I’m the most adaptable and willing to learn because I go in with the mind set that I know nothing and willing to learn everything.

With such a turbulent few years, being adaptive has helped me keep afloat, and a quality that will help me get to where I want to go in my career and in my life. As the quote goes,

This can be specifically applied to a nursing career as well: Every phase of your life will demand you to be a different kind of nurse. That can mean changing the way you approach your current job or seeking out a new job role.

I have to see this opportunity to seek out a new role as not scary. It could be a wonderful opportunity to try something new, to learn something new, even if I have never imagined myself going down this path. It could be temporary, or it could be more permanent. But here and now is a good place to be, in the job situation I’m in now, but tomorrow it all might look a little different.

And that’s ok.

I’m not where I thought I would be as a nurse, or where I would have liked to have been. I am grateful for all the opportunities I have had. I have learned how to be a better nurse, even if I’m not the most skilled or knowledgeable.

I’m interested where the next chapter of nursing takes me, and what version of myself I will have to become. As far as my Master List and Nursing Goals are concerned: I crossed off “Get a new nursing job” of my Master List a couple of years ago, but I might have to re-cross it off my list.

Who knows where life will take me and what kind of nursing role I will fulfill in order met the rest of my goals.