What inspired me to be a nurse?

Claire is currently studying adult nursing at the University of Southampton. In this blog, watch her video about what inspired her to take the path to nursing!

Hey everyone, my name is Claire, and today I'm going to talk to you about what inspired me to be a nurse - so stay tuned!

So I've wanted to be a nurse for as long as I can remember.

I think this is a lot to do with the fact that my mum is a nurse and a lot of people in my family, including my granddad, my auntie, and I think one of my cousins is training to be a nurse as well.

So it just seems to always be in the family and something that always was an option in my head for a job that I would like.

Then when I was in school I realised that getting into nursing was actually more difficult than I thought.

The grades had gone up and I wasn't that academic in school, so this worried me.

I ended up taking the back route to get into nursing.

I went to school in Ireland and I finished secondary school with not the best grades, so it didn't get into nursing in Ireland.

So I did a course called pre-nursing and that nursing course allowed me to get into the University of Southampton, where I’m now training to be a nurse! I'm a second-year adult nursing student and I'm really enjoying it so far.

'Everyone has their own reasons for wanting to be a nurse"

I feel like everyone has their own reasons why they wanted to start nursing in the first place.

Mine was definitely because when my Granddad was really sick when I think I was about 10 or 11, I found it really difficult to just watch him be sick and for me to be able to do absolutely nothing.

I wasn't allowed to go and visit him because he was in ICU and for some reason they wouldn't let me in, I think because of my age, and there were too many people.

This just really affected me because although I was quite young at the time I think it stayed with me as I want to be able to do something if one of my loved ones ever gets sick again.

I think that was the main thing from an early age, why I wanted to do nursing and I think I've always been a very outgoing person.

I’ve always loved being around people, always being an extravert, so an office job never seemed like something I would do. It's just not in my nature to be sitting at a desk all day in the same office, in the same space; I love a variety of jobs.

The other thing is being busy - I hate doing nothing. I would rather be run off my feet then be sitting in the same spot all day, so I think that's also what appealed to me about a nursing job, and just how diverse it is.

I think people sometimes don't realise how many opportunities that actually is within nursing.

I didn't even realise how many jobs there is! I used to think a nurse was just a nurse, but that's completely wrong. There's your basic staff nurse on a ward, but then there's also so many other jobs available as well as that.

You’re more than likely to start on a ward and build up your experience, then you can apply to other roles such as advanced nurse practitioners, you can work in theatres, you can work in the community, you can work in outpatients - there's just a crazy amount of opportunities which I really like.

In a job - let's say a teacher - you're a teacher and then you may become a principal, and apart from that there's not much else you can do, so I think with nursing it's just so diverse.

That really, really appeals to me, so that definitely inspired me. Also, helping people, as generic as it sounds.

Coming home from a shift on placement - that's all that I can talk about as I’m not qualified yet, I’m training to be a nurse - but coming home from placement, getting home and having all these crazy stories about what you've done and who you've helped, and seen people go from completely bad to being able to walk again - it's just miraculous!

"It's crazy what you see, especially at such a young age"

Also, the things you see - you mention something to a friend and they're gobsmacked, but to you it's normal.

It's crazy what you see as such but for us student nurses, such young people see crazy things like that.

It's just a great opportunity and this will only get better, we'll only get to see more opportunities when we're qualified.

So knowing that I've only seen like 1% of the things I'm gonna see is really exciting to me, so that inspires me also to work hard and to get to the places I want to get to.

I might just touch on where I want to be in the next five to ten years. I think I want to become an Oncology Advanced Nurse Practitioner.

I had really good placement on an oncology ward and just completely fell in love with the whole aspect of oncology, and the whole care around palliative care and end-of-life, but also people going through active treatment and actively fighting cancer.

I just find that so fascinating and so inspiring. Just to see people do that with pure determination and pure strength get through things such as cancer, and I just found that inspiring - if there was a better word than inspiring - because it’s just so motivating, not only for me but to see their families going through it as well and to see them being so strong.

Yes, there was some really, really sad times, but people always think ‘oh why oncology, that must be so sad’ but in reality, there's so much more of a positive aspect that people don't necessarily see or think of when they hear ‘cancer’.

I just want to share light on that and I want to help people who have that positive aspect of life and who were going through something horrible.

I want to take that aspect and I want to share that with the world and share it! I'm very passionate about it as you can probably tell, so I could talk about that all day!

So definitely an oncology nurse practitioner or like a nurse specialist clinical, nurse specialist C&S; and in some form of cancer would be good. But until then I just want to do as well as I can in my course and hopefully get a first, and then work my way from there.

Our blog post, my job working in palliative care as an oncology nurse, explains the highs, the lows, and the rewards that a job in oncology has.

"I'm inspired by advanced nurse practitioners who are just completely changing the role of a nurse."

So I think all of this is so inspiring and I was inspired by different things before I started nursing, but now being in nursing I'm also inspired by different things if that makes sense.

So, I was inspired by seeing my granddad in hospital and then wanting to help people, but now I'm in the role actively I'm inspired by oncology, inspired by the nurses I see.

I'm inspired by advanced nurse practitioners who are just completely changing the role of a nurse - read my role as an advanced nurse practitioner, to gain more of an insight into this role!

This is also inspiring to me, so I hope you find your inspiration for nursing and that your inspiration grows with you as you go through your course, and it just doesn't stay the same because I think taking the inspiration from different things will allow you to constantly grow and evolve and become the best nurse you can be.

I hope you liked hearing about why I was inspired to do nursing and what currently inspires me. If you have any questions at all leave comments in the comments box and don't forget to like the video! Thank you so much for watching, bye guys!

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