Comments on: My experience of starting nursing

By: I’d like to ask a question please… | Nurse In Australia

I’d like to ask a question please… | Nurse In Australia — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 08:07:03 +0000

[...] I’ve been nursing around 10 years, but believe it or not I’m also a real human! I have a life outside of work (sometimes), and am happy to ask any questions you might have about nursing, shift work, pay, Australia in general, the Dave Matthews Band (woo!), the strangest emergency presentation I’ve had or anything else at all you can think of. Here’s a bit more about me and how I got into nursing. [...]

By: Ross

Ross — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 17:01:36 +0000

@Eunice – Yeah, I guess you could say that! Also a lot of nurses find it a lot more ‘civil’ working part time instead of full time, like 8 or 6 or 4 shifts per fortnight…

By: eunice

eunice — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 16:33:47 +0000

Thank you for the informative rep! =) So, I guess it’s really up to me and how I choose to invest my time…

By: Ross

Ross — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 14:19:24 +0000

@eunice – Hi there, thanks for visiting…
In answer to your question “do you still have time to pursue your hobbies” well I guess it depends a lot on my current roster and how tired I am! I find it hard to get motivated and do stuff outside of work when I’m on a run of night duties, for instance. I try to make time after work (on an early shift) to get to the gym or play guitar for a bit; I also have spent a fair bit of time lately working on my websites. Sometimes this means I’m up fairly late at night and don’t get a lot of sleep, but then that catches up with me so I need my ‘break time’ to be just that – relaxing etc… sometimes I just try and chill out after work – listen to music, drink coffee etc (I’m a massive coffee fan!)

Does it suppress my creative side? Well yes and no… I guess I don’t have enough time to make a career out of my hobbies, but I can certainly find time to play around with music and website stuff outside of work… Some weeks I have more time to do this than other weeks. I don’t think nursing suppresses my creativity, just limits my time. My problem is more that my life outside of work is also pretty busy – I have a family so am constantly running around dropping my kids here and there etc!

Career choices are really hard… Visiting my kids school etc has made me fairly glad I didn’t pursue the teaching option, I don’t think I quite have the patience etc! Teachers are amazing to put up with teenagers! Nursing has certain advantages – it pays quite well (not the base rate, but shift work / weekend penalties are good), it’s pretty flexible (you can get work all over the world), you can work in many different areas (eg surgical, emergency, GP, paediatrics etc), and there’s no shortage of work (pretty good job security). On the downside you deal with dropkicks, losers and drunks (if you work emergency!) + work crazy hours… I’m pretty happy with my career choice though… You never know quite what’s going to happen on any given day! Good luck with your decision making, email me sometime if you have any more questions.

By: eunice

eunice — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 13:50:42 +0000

hi there, it was good being able to catch glimpses into the life of a nurse. Thanks for sharing ur experiences.. I was just wondering, you mentioned that music and teaching was on ur list,i assume, you appreciate innovation and creativity and expression. With your nursing career now, do you still have time to pursue your hobbies? (be it in IT/music..) or does this job suppress ur creative side?

p/.s:my current list of possible uni degrees is very similar to the one you had, and i’m considering nursing (all of a sudden.) probably gettin tired of all the thinking and pondering.