Archive for the ‘Nurses’ Careers’ Category

If you are interested in finding a career that is interesting, rewarding and challenging, then you should seriously think about nursing as it offers plenty of opportunities both in the UK and abroad. Nurses are the largest group of employees within the NHS and an important part of the healthcare industry. A career in nursing can involve working in a NHS hospital, a private home, in the A&E department or in a school with the chance to meet people of all ages and backgrounds.

If you are a people person and have a genuine interest in caring for others then nursing could be for you. Whilst some people start off by working in support roles which require no qualifications before going on to study for a registered nursing degree or diploma to qualify as a nurse, others go straight to university to get their degree first.

The opportunities in nursing are wide and varied so it's important to read up on the different skills and qualifications you need to acquire if you are interested in a particular specialist field. Consider being an adult nurse where you will be working with adults of all ages with an assortment of health conditions, both chronic and acute. You will have to be caring, give counselling, manage workloads and be a teacher in your role of improving the quality of each patient's life. You could be based on a hospital ward, a clinic or within the community setting.

Or perhaps being a practice nurse appeals? Working alongside a GP as part of a primary care team that includes doctors, nurses, dietitians and pharmacists. In a small practice you may be the only nurse in the area, whilst if it is a larger surgery you are likely to share duties with other practice nurses. To become a practice nurse, you first have to qualify and have experience as a registered nurse. Depending on your previous experience and skills you may be responsible for organising and running clinics.

Mental health problems can affect anyone of us regardless of age or background and conditions range from personality and psychological disorders to neuroses and psychoses. Nurses who choose to specialise in the mental health branch of nursing work with GPs, psychiatrists, psychologists, and others, to help care for patients with mental illnesses. Care in the community is more common these days and your role would involve visiting patients and their families at home, in residential centres, in prisons or in specialist clinics or units.

An occupational health nurse is one specialist area that attracts many nurses as it has many important and interesting aspects to it. You may be involved in setting up and maintaining safe and healthy practices in the workplace or delivering health and safety programmes to staff to prevent illness and injury or you could be working for a big organisation designing disease-prevention programs, or based in the operating theatre assisting the surgeon.

An OHN plays a significant role in a large business as employees who are away from work either through poor health, or work-related accidents, can cost an organisation a lot of money. An effective OHN can help a business to improve employee productivity and increase sales.

Occupational nurses have a varied and interesting role to play in the medical world, every day has something different to offer from assessing the workplace or mentoring and training co-workers, to giving talks to staff on health and safety issues. A career in this type of nursing can be very rewarding and with training and qualifications you can expect to be paid well for your knowledge and skills. Occupational health nursing guarantees a diverse range of opportunities and you can choose to make your living as a clinician, educator, corporate director or consultant.

Nursing is the largest field of healthcare employment and the perfect method of merging a love of science with the chance to work in a very social setting. If you are searching for nursing jobs then take into account the qualifications and experience you are required to have, the salary on offer and the environment you will be working in.

It was the summer of 2005, everyone is busy; busy planning how to spend this time of year. And me, I’m busy packing my things. I don’t know if I should be happy that I’m leaving or should I be sad because of the life that I would be leaving behind; the ambivalence is, by far, the most excruciating thing that I felt.

I was 23 years old when I first set foot in the most coveted country for most Filipino nurses: the USA; young and determined but utterly vulnerable in so many ways. I have spent a fair amount of sniffling during my early days of the country and persistently wiping the tears off my eyes that’s been relentlessly flooding it. I was depressed. I missed my family, my home and everything I left behind.

Most of the Filipino nurses who survived the strain of unhappiness and depression in the US said that to lessen my periods of sadness, I should drown myself with work and before I’ll know it, I’d be comfortable to such scenario. True enough, it did helped me and I adjusted fairly well. Exactly 9 months passed and I realized I’m already living the so called “American dream”. All the episodes of depression as well as hard work have paid off. Seeing my family living a happy and satisfied life back there in the Philippines is more than enough to turn all those stress into a wonderful melody.

It is indeed fulfilling to know that I am helping my family a lot there in my home country. Now I don’t mind the distance and the longing that I often feel during my quiet times; as long as my family is happy. It’s been 5 years since I left. I came home twice. I have a beautiful apartment. I’m driving my own BMW. I have travelled to a lot of places. I never had the chance to taste all these luxuries in my homeland. 5 years of working as a nurse in the US; well, I guess it’s safe for me to say that I am a successful nurse now.

To all the Filipino nurses who’re struggling to work here in the US, don’t loose hope. I know the way to realizing your dreams has been clogged up by the existing recession. But this should not be a reason for you to stop believing. The recession has been attacking us for quite sometime now. There should be a time that it will be exhausted and would pass away. Just keep the faith.

Nursing schools are scattered all over the country. It seemed like putting up a nursing school is purely for business only without considering the quality of education they will bestow to the nursing students. More schools are operating nowadays even though they lack equipments and/or instruments needed by the students for further enhancement of their knowledge and skills. Some people say that some schools provide more of the nursing theories rather than that of the nursing skills. While some schools also impart mostly on the skills rather than that of the theories. But in order to produce a more equipped and competitive nurse, both knowledge and skills should be present because both of these work hand in hand for the nurses to perform their duties and responsibilities effectively well.

The shrinking passing rates of the Nursing Board Examinations is utterly depressing. The failing rate is even higher compared to that of the passing rate. It is so upsetting to know that the passing rates of some schools are getting worse as time goes by. Who should be blamed? I think the nursing schools are the ones responsible about this unwanted situation that we are facing right now. The quality of education that the nursing schools provide to their students really matters a lot. So, those schools who have been getting very low passing rates for the past years should be warned and be given memo that once they cannot produce a good passing rate the next time, they can no longer operate or offer the Nursing course. =0

Nurses can do all sorts of stuff. They can work from being an educator or a clinician to a flight attendant, driver, or a volunteer nurse—just name it. A nurse is always willing to do just whatever in order to help out…

Ever heard of the saying “The Way Of The Ninja”? Well, might as well be familiar with “The Way Of The Nurse”. You see, nurses are different from others. They are usually more flexible. They just don’t have any choice; they have to work different shifts and have to keep up with different paces—talk about survival of the fittest—-and fiercest… And they do this without sacrificing the quality of care that they are providing which is, in itself, a sacrifice that they impose to themselves.

If there’s one thing every nurse has, it’s their flexibility. Now, that is the way of the nurse.

-Anonymous

They say the only wish of a nurse is to go abroad.
I say, “Heck Yeah!”… It’s so damn hard for a nurse in this country to really get a good-paying job. No wonder there is the so-called “brain drain” that affects greatly our health care system. Everybody’s going out. There’s just not enough hospitals to go around. Do you want to be a volunteer all your miserable life? I don’t think so.

Nurses have witnessed enough corruption in this country. A lot of those are even happening in many hospitals. “Sheesh”, I so hope that we can vote for the “lesser evil” politicians this coming election. Since most nurses want to leave this place, they might as well leave it on the hands of those who can really take good care of it.

It’s hard enough to leave our girlfriends, our friends and ultimately our families to the hands of these blood-sucking politicians who can’t even do anything about the overwhelming surplus of nurses. I’m cryin’ out loud! Will somebody do something about this?!

-A Nurse Who Can Wish And Vote

I’m pretty sure everyone who’ll read this blog would think that I am just one of those desperate Filipino nurses who deliberately derailed themselves from their pledged profession and attempt to speak the language of other professions for the sake of survival.

Truthfully, you could classify me as one… I am a Filipino nurse, an NCLEX passer and a successful banker working as a branch operations head. Yes, you’ve read it right, a banker. After I passed the board exams I was so eager and excited to work in the hospital. I applied and was hired—as a volunteer. I earnestly went on my volunteer duties for almost two years until the time came when my financial disposition could no longer suffice the demands of my volunteer work. I resigned. In pursuit for current opportunities, I applied on a well-established bank; luckily, I was hired. I bought my way to where I am right now with sweat and tears. By far, I have no regrets.

I’m not really sure if I have totally given up my Nursing profession; what I’m sure about is that I’m happy with my current job.

Change is inevitable. As time goes by, people may not have notice the many changes that’s been surrounding us. These changes are the factors that change us as individuals. We are merely actors and actresses in a humongous stage playing our designated roles, and if the plot changes, then our roles change too.

We are not the same people as what we were before. In my case, when I was still a student nurse, there was no mention of any threat of global crisis. But now, it has annihilated millions of dreams around the globe; my dreams were not spared, it was brutally murdered too. As we try to adjust to this existing disaster we come up with various schemes in order to survive.

There are a lot of factors that led us to become modern day nurses; the global recession is an example. The entire world is cowering at the sight of it and it incapacitated economies worldwide. With money becoming less abundant, we nurses strive to survive, thus we talk about money, money, and more money.

Nurses are human too, like anyone they also change. We are living in modern times so we adapt and become modern too. We do our duty and by doing so we get paid—a very simple trade.

In a world full of uncertainties we strive to survive which is human nature and by surviving we acted out the most basic of all human rights, to LIVE. We change because we adapt, and by adapting we survive and by surviving we LIVE.

It is but noble to render one’s services to his/her own country, but if we’re talking about survival, it makes the entire topic different. This is what happened to the nursing industry here in the Philippines: after passing the board exam, experience for a while then the nurse bids goodbye and fly to another country.

This has always been the case and you can’t blame the nurses for having such mentality because of the poor opportunities here in the Philippines. It may sound ridiculous but for your information, a US-based Filipino nurse’s monthly wage is way too big (not less than 100,000Php) compared to the Philippine president’s (around 45,000Php). Let’s be honest, we all want to live a good life with our families but the Philippine government could hardly give it to us.

Ironically, It would be libelous to say that poverty in our country is still lurking because it has attacked us already and most are badly wounded. With this, adrenaline rush comes in; the flight or fight mechanism. Some had resorted to flight and literally flew and found safety in other countries. How about you? Would you rather fly or just choose to fight?

It is now slowly becoming conspicuous that the number of enrollees of the Nursing course is dwindling. Talks have been heard that the hiring of nurses or manpower of the healthcare sector abroad is becoming slow if not frozen due to the current recession. Because of this, students are wavering if whether or not to pursue their dreams of becoming a nurse someday and hopefully work abroad and help their families. A contemporary of mine who works as a clinical instructor in a huge university in my province said that the number of sections of first year BSN students went down to 10 from 13. In fact, in the last two years she saw first and second year Nursing students who decided to shift courses due to personal reasons but mostly because of the fear that nothing might happen to their careers after passing the board exam; it has widely been known that career opportunities for nurses are scarce in the Philippines. If this “frozen hiring” is indeed true, what will happen to the upcoming nurses? Are they on their way to be thrown to the towering heap of unemployed nurses in the country? What should—or what is the government’s long term solution to this problem?

I am nurse here in the Philippines and have been working on a government hospital for almost three years now. Good for those Filipino nurses who work in private healthcare institutions that they don’t have to suffer the inhuman amount of stress that government hospitals impose on their nurses—like me.

I am particularly talking about the number of patients that I have to attend to every duty; oftentimes, it’s way beyond my human capacity. It is not really unusual to solely take care of at least 25 patients every duty— it is unusual if the number of patient would be less than the figure I mentioned. On one of my duties, the nursing aide did not report to duty and we were only two nurses in the ward to take care of 65 patients. Though most patients were stable, some were on monitoring status and the nursing aide’s work was another burden that was placed on us; it was truly a grueling day in the hospital.

What I could not understand is that, there are so many nurses in the country but why in the world could the government not hire more nurses to turn the nurse-patient ratio to what is ideal. Why? Are their sources of corruption waning?