Employment

It seems that the whole time we have been in this town I have been trying to find my fit in the employment world.
In Auckland I was working in the Operating Theatres and it was my niche. I have actually been doing it for about 16 years. It is what I love to do.
When we moved to Hamilton the boys were still little and with some changes the Government had just made to childcare, there was quite a waiting list if you found somewhere you wanted them to attend.
So for the first few months I didn't look for a job, but when I did I never really found anything great. The local public hospital does have a large Operating Theatre department but how it is run does not fit with my family or life, so I have never gone to work there. I did manage to find work (private hospital) but it was very part time, I got bored and after a year I moved on.
The position I moved on to was actually a position that only had a years contract so I knew it would end eventually. From there I secured a position at the hospital but after 18 months I realised that this department (Cardiology) was not for me, the work was ok but just not my speciality.
A secondment came up for a change management position and I managed to get one of the 4 positions available, however like a lot of things in the last few years, it was only for a set amount of time!
That time is now ending.....and so I am once again in that wonderful (!) position of looking for some more work.
I have the ability to go back to the department I came from, but I don't want to. I didn't enjoy it and I am now big enough and ugly enough to know that there is more to a pay check than just getting fed up and miserable.
It affects everything.....my life, my family even my mood, so why not be happy.
Although I am well aware of the fact that I do need to work, sadly we are not in a position to be able to only have 1 pay check coming in, plus I know I would go stark raving nutty if I had to stay home all day every day!

So I am now one of those people who spends each day checking the situation vacant pages online. I would be happy to stay at the hospital if I could find a suitable position.
I also currently work 4 days a week and most of the positions I am seeing advertised are for full time! Looks like I finally have to bite the bullet and get back into the real world and finally go back to full time work, although I so don't want to, I love being able to collect the boys from school 1 afternoon a week, it makes me feel like I am still apart of their world and they are only 7 & 9 years old.
We never had the boys for someone else to always look after them, I want them to enjoy school, not have to be constantly tired from being out of the house each day by 7.30am and not getting home until after 5pm each evening.
However I do have a job interview tomorrow afternoon. In a position that I would like, well apart from the fact that it is full time!
It would be a good position to have, I think. The hours are very suitable with my family, so I can work out, no afternoons or nights at least.
So at 2pm on Monday I will be smiling sweetly and answering questions to the best of my ability.

Wish me luck

Bac to Skool Update

Talked to the Head of Health Dept today with regards to doing my degree through them.
Will not be a happening thing!
Find out more here.

No Turning Back...!

I posted last week about how I was looking into completing my Bachelors of Nursing.
Well, there is no turning back now, as prior to having our weekend away I collected all the relevent paperwork I needed for the application. I got it all verified by JP and completed all 10 (felt like it!) 5 forms required.

Today, I went to Wintec and officially handed in my application.
Now I just sit back and wait for the letter to tell me exactly what I have to complete to achieve my goal. Will probably be May before I know completely.

On the other hand, one of the nice ladies at Wintec sent me through the Bio for the paper I think I have to complete.
Well Steve and I had a good laugh reading it as it is all based around very basic leadership, change and evaluating of yourself as a nurse, or more to the point, how to analyse yourself and your practise as you become a registered nurse!
This course is actually focused at people who are just completing their nurse training, so I may find some of the lectures and papers very interesting as I will be bringing 15 yrs experience to the lectures!

Looks like it is going to be a fun year

Qualifications

I am a Registered Nurse.
Have been for about 15 years.
I did my nurse training in England, back in the early 90's. I trained to be a nurse because the careers lady said she thought I had people skills and that this would be a good qualification to have when working with people. I never actually planned to go to work in a hospital, but once my training had finished, it seemed the most logical place to get work, plus having just spent 3 years in a hospital training you really could only see jobs in one place and that was, of course, the hospital.

Now degrees were not that important back then, nursing was just a qualification that you gained and then went to work.
Over the years they have now started deciding that nursing needed to be recognised and made into a profession. So that meant that they have started making nurse training into degree courses so it is recognised through education facilities like Universities/ College.

Over the last 10 years or so I have watched a lot of colleagues (including Steve, who completed his a couple of months before we got together) convert their training into a Bachelors of Nursing but have never felt the urge to do it.

Finally my time has come!
I have decided to convert my training into something that will be easily recognised and allow me to carry on to do other things easily.

I actually want to give up nursing and train to be a Primary School Teacher.

Even though I am thoroughly enjoying my new job at the hospital, I am sadly bored with nursing.
I still love caring for people and helping them through their frightening experience they may have with us. I still love speaking up for people when they are unable to and fighting to ensure they get the best possible outcome.
I still love being there for people and knowing that I made their experience whilst unwell in the hospital a better experience and let them know that someone really was looking out for them and cares.

But I now want something else. And in this day and age that ability to retrain and do something else is just at our finger tips if we are prepared to work and fight for it. In days gone by, you trained as one thing and that was what you stayed as for the rest of your working life. Nowadays people are spending 20 years in one profession and then suddenly deciding to have a total change, retrain, and then spend the last 20 years working at something totally different...and loving it!

Unfortunately here in New Zealand they do not have a nursing course like I originally did, so nothing to compare it to. I know I do not have a degree, and know that my training was not the equivilent to a degree, so have had to go through the process of finding out exactly where I sit and how much more work I have to do to obtain a degree.
I finally found that information out today with the help of a lovely lady at the local College that does the Bachelor of Nursing Course.
She thinks I can get prior learning recognition and therefore all the nursing papers I have done since my training can go towards it. Which generally means that according to her I need to do 1, yes that is right, 1 more paper/module and I will have enough credits to be recognised as having studied to a degree level and be awarded my Degree in Nursing.
Shame that once I have it I will use it to go on and do something other than nursing!

So I am now in the process of completing the required paperwork to register at the local College on the Bachelors of Nursing Course and will then wait for them to let me know officially what they wish me to complete to obtain my degree.
She spoke of the module I need to complete and it starts in July and finishes in November. It will have a few contact lessons, but not many, and then the rest is done through assessment and assignment, which I think I can manage.
So it looks like, with a bit of luck, that I will finish the year with turning 40 and succeeding in having a degree. Just like my mum did. If she can get a qualification at 40ish then why can't I 20 years later?

Quite an achievement really, one to be very proud of.

4 Yr Old

Alex had the wonderful fate of having his 4yr old Immunisations yesterday.
Consequently he is not a great fan of the nurse at the surgery because according to him she 'put holes in my arms!'
He even went so far as to ask if he had to ever see the nurse again? Because he said he doesn't want any more holes in his arms!
The look on his face when she put the first injection in.......if looks could kill, she was way out of here!
That made getting the second one in more of a challenge, although he was actually a fabulous little boy with the nurse and I am very proud of him.

My son, sadly does not do pain, no way at all, so this of course left him very fragile for the rest of the evening.
He didn't want a shower because his arms would get wet!
All he wanted to do was snuggle with mummy because then he would be safe.
He didn't like Grandad, who is currently staying with us, decided that Grandad needed to go home!
Didn't even want daddy because daddy was the one who suggested a shower in the first place!

Alex is the type of person who will hurt himself, cry for a while over the sore arm, leg, hand etc. He will then be fine for a while, but then several hours later will see the wound and promptly start howling again, because he remembers that he has a sore wound!
He can even work himself into a frenzy several days later.
As I said, he does not do pain!