Children nurses, Veterinarians, and Psychologists…

[Coffeemugwoes]

Please help me decide what I want to do! I’m now fairly certain that I want to do one of these three (well, I want to do all of them!).

If you work in one of these fields (or know someone who does), please could you tell me about your experiences and any advice?

What is your educational background? How academic are you? What is it that attracts you to these roles?
Knowing that will help people advise you.

I'm a children's nurse, I've been qualified for 16 years. I've done A&E, community nursing, general children's ward and now working on nicu.
The hours are long (13 hour shifts) but i only do 3 shifts per week. The work is physically and mentally draining but I love it. The nhs is absolutely toxic to work for, some wards are better than others, but the nhs in general is dire.
Is there a specific area of children's nursing you are interested in?

Paediatric nurse for 21 years. Best job ever. The shifts are long but you only do 3-4 a week. I don’t find the NHS toxic. Yes things could be improved, but it’s really not that bad.

I currently only have a gcse in Maths and English, I began an open uni bachelors degree in Forensic Psychology and received very high marks but I had to defer midway through as my personal life was at a very low point. I was very interested in psychology, but specifically forensics, which seems to be extremely difficult to get a job within that field, which really puts me off of that, because the idea of nothing being promised after studying etc for years is a bit anxiety inducing tbh!
I would love to hear from people in other fields of psychology though, or even better, any forensic psychologists.

I would love to work in nursing with children, or my dream would be in midwifery, however without getting too tmi here, I am having some fertility issues so I’m not sure about pursuing the midwifery aspect until I am able to conceive.

I currently work with animals now and although I am passionate about the animal side of things, it is a very high workload for the salary that I get, so I would enjoy to still work with animals but be able to make a more liveable income!

I imagine it would be very draining but I would assume very rewarding?

I am particularly interested in midwifery however I am not going to go for that unless my own infertility issues are sorted out (we are still really at the beginning of that journey!)

Midwifery is very different to children's nursing. If it's Midwifery that you want, I don't think children's nursing would scratch that itch.

I think I know what you mean, but could you explain why?

I wouldn’t go in to veterinary. Long hours for a comparatively poor salary.
Longer university degree than most and it’s full time no OU or distance learning options. A lot of placements.
You would also be very unlikely to get in without top grades at A level plus experience of working in a related field.

Clients can be absolutely vile. Expect everything for free, media aren’t helping. I know 3 colleagues who have committed suicide, the job has one of the highest suicide rates than any other profession.
Redundancies happening all over and almost all practices now taken over by corporates. Don’t bother

Because midwifery is nothing like nursing.
We get student midwives on our ward for one week placements and they don't do any of the clinical skills that our nursing students do. It's a totally different skillset.
I would never be able to go onto a maternity ward and do any of their work except obs because the training is completely different.
But give me a sick baby and I can manage a ventilator, manage it's arterial blood pressure monitoring, pass orogastric tubes, do an ecg, manage it's thermoregulation, help prevent intraventicular haemorrhage etc.

My daughter thinking about Vet. Its A grades in Biology/Chemistry and another. Not only that but some work in a vets or on a farm and maybe something in a shop eg weekend work (this for teenagers). 4000 applicants, 2000 places. 11 places to study. Liverpool take 40% of applicants for the course. 3 years study + 2 years with animals plus more time if you want to specialize

There is a desperate shortage of vets since Brexit. And if you work with charities you could make a huge difference. However I admit that the hours, stress and salary aren't great.

But we need you!!

Honestly, unless you study nursing, medicine, teaching or another course that leads directly to a career, I don’t think you’re promised anything at the end of an undergraduate course. That’s borne out by tales of young people who have degrees in many subject areas, but they don’t lead to a career.

You say that you need to sort out your fertility issues. If you’re intending to have a family, I wouldn’t combine that with starting a course.

Not anymore. 30% of students that graduated this year didn’t have jobs. Redundancies affecting over half of my colleagues. Jobs few and far between and they are only the dregs of jobs with copious OOH and low pay. It’s not what it was

Well I wish they would come out way then. We are desperate to recruit.

Being a vet requires very good academics, there is always the veterinary nurse option?
There are a limited number of jobs in psychology and many require specialized additional study. You are not going to be promised a job but that doesn’t mean that you couldn’t get one.

The jobs you've mentioned all seem very different- I think you need to narrow down what appeals to you.

Do you know what study is involved for each, and how that will be funded/ manageable if starting a family?

Psychology is a long slog to qualify for, and its quite emotionally draining to be honest.

Clinical psychologist takes about 8 years to qualify (undergrad + work experience + 3 year postgrad) and is incredibly competitive. Also stressful and not well paid.
Educational psychologist is a similar path.

Vet school very hard to get into, also a lot of the course is nothing like being a pet vet (involves working with farm animals, abattoirs…).

I’m not saying you can’t do it but just to be aware of what is involved.

i think if you are keen to do something with a job at the end of it i would advise aiming for an undergrad degree that is enough to start in your chosen job. For example I think you can be a nurse with a just nursing degree (no further study which you have to get into, pay for and do!) but cannot be a psychologist with just a psychology degree.

You should start by finding out what qualifications you need for each of those and then the entry requirements and what schemes are available for people who don't have A-levels to access the courses.
If you only have GCSEs in Maths and English you have a long way to go before you can start a degree course for one of those.
Maybe I've missed something in your posts though as you've done part of an OU degree.

I would steer clear of veterinary medicine though. Really hard job, not well paid compared to what you have to do, as someone else said awful customers.
My vet didn't want to give my cat a blood test because it would cost me too much (€100) and he said it wasn't necessary, cat seemed ok. (Turned out I was right because I know the cat and noticed very small behavioursl changes). Anyway he said he gets screamed at 4 or 5 times every day by people who say it costs too much and a couple of people had gone completely out of control when he suggested a blood test to check something and the bloods turned out fine.

I’m a psychologist. You’d need a BSc degree at 2.1 or above. Often people then get a masters. Then you’d need work experience for a couple of years in a health or forensic or social care type role (these roles would be paid you’d just need to find them). After this, you can apply for a doctorate course. Either pay for one (£9k a yr for x2-3 years) or get a funded one (such as clinical psychology) and do that for 3 years.
After 6 years minimum, possibly 7 years university study, and likely 3 but up to 5-7 years experience (in the middle of the studying) you would be a Psychologist. So typically, when students do this all from age 18, they’re qualified around 28-34.

Starting salaries in the NHS are about £50k and most Psychologists spend a chunk of their career around the £75k salary (8b). If you work for private companies, pay is often less. If you work privately in private practice where clients pay you direct, you earn double if not triple this …. £150k+

It’s a brilliant job, highly flexible, incredibly interesting and rewarding, and you need to be very smart, organised, driven & ready to slog for many years. Once you’ve been qualified 5-10 years you’d have a great quality of life.