What do you want to be when you grow up? A question I never thought ‘nurse’ would be the answer to.
Now I am about to begin my final year of study, and I am loving the choice I made those years ago.
Not only have I learnt a great deal of theoretical knowledge, but I have also gained valuable advice from everyone I have interacted with.
However, now the question has shifted to: why would you still want to be a nurse?
People see the strikes, hear about staffing shortages, and the lack of hiring, and they are concerned.
As a student nurse, I understand those uncertainties; they are valid and experienced by hundreds.
I look around my class, hearing everyone’s worries, and think about how many of us will actually be hired after graduation.
I have seen my peers work so hard, going through a variety of experiences in clinical placements and to see these worries consume all of it adds another layer of fear.
We bond together as a cohort over these worries, but should the worry be that final-year nursing students are more concerned about whether people will want to hire them, when the most strenuous worry should be their grades?
Despite all of these uncertainties, there is one certainty that I have witnessed and experienced.
Nurses are a community. Everyone has seen us stand together, protest for what is right and safe, and for what is irreplaceable.
Not everyone has the opportunity to be a part of something so special. Therefore, despite all my worries, all our worries, there is one certainty — that nurses are family, and for that I will forever be grateful.
- To find out about the growing group of nursing graduates looking for work read here. The latest job figures come after two years of struggle from graduates to find mahi.