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Friday 7 May 2010

Putting my skills to use

After seeing susie today she & J (who popped in to get something from the treatment room while i was there - twice!) told me that me medical skils are wasted. Susie said she could tell the difference between the doctors care & my own. She asked me whether i had thought about getting into nursing. I mentioned to her about my dreams of being a paramedic, but commented how i didn't think anyone would touch me with my mental health history. She told me i wouldn't know unless i tried.

I have various thoughts on this - firstly it brings back nightmare memories of working as a HCA on a hospital ward - admittedly i didn't have any support, despite never having done anything like that before. When i turned up the manager didn't even know i was starting, so i was thrown in the deepest end possible. Anyway i lastest 2 months before what could have been a fatal breakdown (and goodness knows how it wasn't - or rather it wasn't for me, but it was for the car!). So i don't think i'd want to work on a ward again, but maybe a healthcare assistant in a general practice while i find my feet and get my life on track.

What i was really day dreaming about was being a specialist self harm nurse, so to speak - although i think i just invented that job title! I can seem to find out any info on whether i would be allowed to use my skills as an HCA - so without going the full nursing degree.

Trouble is as soon as i start looking at things like Uni and degrees i get in a state and start crying. Because most uni courses want A levels which i don't have. Which is why nursing, or medicine as susie suggested seems so far out of the question and from a couple of years time it will be the same for paramedic qualifications too. This generally means i get totally dispondant and give up on any idea of it at all.

Who am i kidding? no-one is going to touch me with a barge pole, no matter how good my medical/nursing/emergency care skills are.

2 people had something to say about this:

Bippidee said...

Have you thought about doing something like an Access to Higher Education course? You could do it in something like Health and Social Care since that is what you are interested in, and then you would be studying something you liked, and it would mean that you would gain a qualification that would enable you to study nursing or something in the future. It might be something you could work towards? x

Susie said...

trouble is i'm not sure i want to do nursing in general - and i know you can't really pick and choose with that kind of thing.

paramedic appeals more than nursing on a ward but nursing as a practice nurse in a surgery might be better.

i think now is probably not the right time to think about this, not given the reason i went to see Susie in the first place.

 
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