My very first job was in a potato factory, in Carnoustie, Scotland, where a family member worked in a senior role in the office and managed to get me a Saturday job while I was 13 and still at school. I don't often talk about this because I only lasted about two weeks and then gave it up. Too much like hard work.
My first proper job was a by-product of a school work experience programme I was on at a local vet surgery here in Dundee. After my work experience block had ended the surgery had offered me a Saturday job which I gladly accepted and this was the start of my exposure to healthcare, all be it animal healthcare. I always remember sitting in the "kennel block", a room which had kennels build along both sides of the room, one side for large dogs, the other for smaller animals such as cats and small dogs. I was sitting in this block with a Doberman, his name I can't remember, who was very unwell. He had torsion, a condition often seen in horses but can happen in dogs of the larger bread who have eaten and then exercised too close together, or vice versa. I knew about the condition as my aunt is a very experienced dog handler and owner and always spoke about torsion or Gastric Dilatation Volvulus as its also known as.
Stock Photo from Google labelled for reuse.
The vet took the dog to surgery and I had asked to observe which was welcomed. I was astonished and perplexed by how quickly everything happened and within minutes the vet was elbow deep inside this Dobermans abdominal cavity. I was hooked. I always think this amazing, rapid and very specialised operation was the reason I know I wanted to be involved in care, but I always knew veterinary care or medicine was not for me. It was too upsetting. I am not sure what that suggests about me as a person, knowing I have pursued a career in human healthcare.
Before this, however, I always had this longing to help. Animals, people, anyone or anything really. When I reflect on this, I often think it comes from my past, my background. My parents died when I was young. Both my parents had been intravenous drug users, IVDU's as we say in healthcare, or in Scotland also known as "junkies", a horrible term. They both died before I was even 5 years old, my father when I was 2 then my mother I think when I was 3. I have no memories of them, which can eat me up sometimes, but I think because of the way I still see this group of people, "junkies", stigmatised, it made me want to be part of healthcare and make an effort to treat people with the care and compassion they deserve, no matter what. Something we now called Person-centred Care. I don't know if my parents were stigmatised against, I can bet they were, but it's them I think about when I hear and see that stigma, and think, my parents were in that bracket, how dare people consider them in this way.
Stock Photo from Google labelled for reuse.
So how did I get from "junkies" son, to nursing student, 150 Leader, School President and Representation Councillor? Well with determination and hard work. Because I now knew my area of interest regarding employment and career goals, I knew I wouldn't be handed this on a plate. Two years of online, distance learning with the Open University while juggling children, fulltime employment and every other obstacle life brings, I got the grades to be able to apply for fulltime study in adult nursing. My significant other half, or in other words my fiance Sammi, works as a healthcare assistant in an acute surgical receiving unit and loves it, but sees herself working with people with addiction in substances such as drink and drugs and I commend this. You might think its an area I would be passionate about and of course, I am, I just think it's too close to "home" to be able to work in. Healthcare, as it is, is sometimes too upsetting and hard to not become attached.
Stock photo from Wix.
I was brought up by my grandparents and they are older grandparents than my friends for example, by comparison. The generation gap between me and my grandparents is significantly larger than my best friend and his, for example, so you can imagine the challenges this brung. Interestingly though, although both retired in their 60s when they officially and legally took over my care (while both my parents were still alive, via a Guardianship order), when they had worked, they both had worked in mental health care, as nursing auxiliaries, now the term would be healthcare assistant/healthcare support worker. They actually met each other while working in a mental health "institution" in Dundee, which has a fascinating background you can look at in your own time and a book has been written by a patient who was in the said institution (not when my grandparents worked there) called 50 Years in the System. The institution was called Baldovan mental institution when my grandparents worked there but had previous names such as Baldovan Institue for Imbecile Children. I can't believe it was allowed to be called that. The stories my grandparents have from that place are worth writing a book about. Shocking but fascinating. Mental health, or at least the history of it, fascinates me, but it's not an area I think I could work in so I take my hat off to those who do. I am lucky to have the most amazing lecturers in mental health nursing who I really admire and am so glad I have had the opportunity to meet.
Strathmartin Hospital, also known as Baldovan Institue. Picture thanks to Bloggar Photography.
I am rambling, I apologise. So nursing, how did I get here. Well, a mixture of expose and stories I guess. My first job in healthcare was in the local hospital within the renal dialysis department. I was 18, having just finished several weeks at Dundee College on this new, trial course known as the Healthcare Academy, which is very successful now. 18 is fairly young and I remember being a bit out of my depth. It's only some 10 years ago, but they were still doing hospital corners, and I still do them where possible now. I left renal after about a year because I had seen a job in the private sector working in a unit which looked after people who required hospitalisation due to learning disability and challenging behaviour.
A few years past and I decided to take a break from healthcare. I went and worked in customer service, working for SSE, Tesco and laterally The Range as surprisingly an office manager. I hated this. All of them. It was not me. Not a good fit, although I learnt a lot from the roles and a lot of transferable skills I bet I take to healthcare again now. My gran became unwell and I took a career/employment break. Why some might ask, this was my gran, was it my responsibility with a young son and bills to pay. I think I felt this unconscious and perhaps imaginary pressure that because I had experience in healthcare, I should be the one who took on this unpaid, unrecognised carer role of my grandmother. This went on for a few years, battling with social care services and care managers to get simple, basic things that seemed to be only obvious and imperative, but perhaps not so to them. Gran died two years ago now.
Why have I written this blog? I wanted you all to know I am a person, just like you. There's nothing amazing or spectacular about me. I want you all to know you can do anything you want to in life. I never thought I would be where I am now. I may seem confident but I am far from it. I have the good old imposter syndrome every day, but as my personal lecturer suggested, imposter syndrome is a healthy attribute to have, otherwise we become too overconfident and cocky. I want to share a video with you by one of many of my role models and people I aspire to. I was able to relate to this video and able to see how things can happen if you believe in them. Take care of yourself and never question yourself or the choices you make. I am a protagonist. I am a boat rocker and outspoken. That is not because I want to be awkward or pain in the neck, that's because sometimes the status quo is not good enough. Sometimes you need to challenge this. I don't do what I do for me, I still go home to the skeletons in my closet after all. I do it for that one patient who gets suboptimal care. That one nursing student who is treated like a number and not a person. That one nurse who undervalued an unappreciated. That one "junkie" who is treated like they are below society.
Brian