My Journey Into Nursing

One of the most common questions I get asked is how I got into nursing. 

My path wasn't a conventional one. I didn't finish my A Levels and left school when I was 17. I felt that not knowing what career I wanted at that age, made University a waste of my time when I could be out working. So that's what I did. Over the years I have worked a range of jobs, from being a festival bar maid, to a ladieswear Supervisor. I did a short stint as a Sales Ledger/Bookkeeper and worked self-employed as a nail technician and spray tanner. I always wanted to be in a customer-facing role and felt really comfortable in leadership roles, its where I worked at my best.

One day I just thought I need to make a big change here..and that's where it all started. I applied for a few Care Assistant jobs with domiciliary companies and accepted an offer with an amazing company in Wolverhampton who gave me all my initial training and really put me on the right path. The support from them, even to this day has been unreal. Unfortunately, travelling was an issue for me, so I stepped down from my permanent role with them onto the bank, and moved into a residential care home. I spent almost 4 years there before leaving to have my daughter. Working in the care home had many ups and downs and gave me experiences that I will never forget. I loved my residents as you may know from previous blogs but felt that there wasn't much room for career progression for me. After having my daughter, I went to work for a GP surgery as a medical receptionist for a while and after my Grandad fell ill, I decided that I wanted to be a Paramedic..(Yes..I said Paramedic).

I started the Access to HE course with all intentions of applying for Paramedic Science, but again struggled to see where I could progress in the role (I didn't have a whole lot of info about this at the time) so I took some time to think things through and come up with a new plan before deciding to apply for Nursing with the view to becoming an Advanced Nurse Practitioner/Emergency Care Practitioner.

During the Access course I volunteered with St John Ambulance which I absolutely loved and I applied to my local Trust for Work Experience. Both of these helped with my application into University. I was originally applying for Bachelor of Nursing courses, when I stumbled across the MNurs course. The MNurs is an integrated masters degree and had much higher entry requirements so I applied on a whim, not thinking I would get in. I worked my little butt off to get good grades and to my amazement, managed to meet every single requirement for the MNurs..and here I am..I've just finished first year, and have 2 months off before starting the 2nd year of my course and 3rd year of overall studying. I will be 31 when I qualify and then have a lot more training planned to get to where I want to be. I know it will be hard work but its totally worth it!