midwifery or police detective?

[careerpanic364683]

if you had to choose one of these what would you choose? i’m on the last stage of interview for police graduate scheme to end up as a detective. i’m also on the last stage of interview into midwifery masters.

info —
police - 31k a year, pay whilst training from march. 2 year training then pay rise. huge incentive to me as we are pretty broke.
midwifery - 3 year training no pay, placements which again are not paid and will force me to also cut hours at my present job because of shift patterns. starts in january.

interest wise there’s no difference. i would love to do either. i’m aware they’re very different but both appeal massively in different ways.
i have 3 young children which makes me veer slightly more toward midwifery as i think it’s safer and more family friendly in this sense. however the fact that police pays is a huge incentive.

name change as this is very outing to anyone who knows me

I don’t know anything about midwifery but I believe (at least in our local force) the big benefit of the PCDA is that the police pay the tuition fees for the degree, so you come out of uni debt free which is a big incentive. The downside is before becoming a detective you do still have to do the 2 years working in uniform on response. Night shifts, dealing with dangerous situations etc. The good thing about the police is that once in there are a multitude of departments/areas of policing you can specialise in should you choose to.
you do need to maintain a level of fitness all throughout your career to pass the annual fitness test, something to consider if you’re not the kind of person who regularly exercises, especially as you get older.

Having a career in the NHS (not midwifery) I'd avoid. The NHS is an awful place to work and has been worsening, b*tchy and becoming more stressful, over the years.

I know family/friends in the police and whilst they've also go cuts, stress etc they some, having a good 10 or 20 years service in, are now off the "front line" and some have police office jobs, non-shift work Monday to Friday. The teamwork in general seems better than I've known in the NHS.

I think there is more scope for progression and sideways steps in the police v midwifery.

Both have good pensions but I think the Police Pension is slightly better.

Personally I would choose midwifery more of a nurturer than a fighter! I think being a police officer with young children could be hard. However I have friends in the police who love it. Definitely a lot of work colleagues support. Shift work is hard with young children plus essays etc so I would think that through. I know a lot of people who have come out of the nhs. I found it a unsupportive place to be many years ago but I think that varies on individuals.

Police can be awful for women - especially women with caring duties. What will you do when a situation carries on past your ‘clock off’ time and you need to look after your kids? There’s a reason barely any women are in the police. And that’s misogyny.

Having done my midwifery degree and promptly left, and now work in law enforcement/civil service, midwifery hands down.
The job satisfaction is on another levels. The lows are low, but the highs are so much better than anything in the police.
Also, with police you generally see humanity at its worst, whilst with midwifery its humanity at its best.

I vote police -l say that as a qualified nurse and child of a police officer. The NHS is in free fall and maternity services in a lot of places are terrible. The police isn’t a bed of roses but they have slightly more respect for their staff and the money will improve quicker. Being realistic but neither job is very family friendly and it’s unlikely you will consistently finish on time with either job

I think policing is an incredibly tough job, you're likely to experience trauma as a result and receive insufficient support to deal with it. I think it's important to consider how that will affect you raising a young family as well as long shifts etc

There's also risk to your family as well as yourself which could be a very significant risk depending on where in the UK you live. Where I am it's rare for officers to live near where they work so the officers I know travel at least an hour each way to get to work every day which is a lot in the context of long shift patterns. There's also the impact of stress on your family knowing what you do and what could happen to you.

I know a few who really love it and have a lot of camaraderie within their teams and some who love the work, but find their team dynamic difficult- which I guess could happen anywhere but could increase risk of trauma etc.

I think midwives are seriously underpaid and the training under resourced and a lot of burnout within the NHS as well.

Which is your heart leaning more towards?

Think you can now do direct to detective graduate scheme without the 2 years in uniform.

Goodness, they are quite different! (Though both very active jobs that require a lot of interaction with others so I can see how the same person might be pulled towards both).

I’m a midwife and I can’t think of any other job I’d rather do (except perhaps a few specialist branches of nursing). However DH and I were watching Blue Lights earlier today and saying what an interesting job a detective seems!

Is pay and promotion better in policing? Do you have an emotional pull more towards one of the options?

Ooooh interesting choice. My parents worked in both and I have friends in both areas.

police - concerns would be shifts and having to stay on to deal with something/more extreme in nature/high levels of trauma and stress/needing to be ‘front line’ for a period of years/misogyny and racism

midwifery - stress/NHS is stretched/heard that some teams can be cliquey if your face doesn’t fit/debts from uni/shifts

My nephews girlfriend has just completed her midwifery only to be informed there are no jobs this year and the whole year should "try again next year" it's disgraceful and they have been offered no further support or advice.

Police if you have good childcare in place.

thank you all - some good advice here!

one of the big appeals for police i think is that i feel like it would kind of force me to uphold my own fitness. i’m really into weight lifting and running etc and i think it’s one of those jobs where being fit is kind of a must, so feel like it could be quite motivating in this way? the pay is also better than midwifery unless i were to move into a more niche field of midwifery, but the part that appeals is delivery/postnatal so probably wouldn’t be the case of wanting to work up the ranks etc.

i think the shift problem is the same for both really. my mum is a midwife and growing up i remember her always being late, always doing overtime, always missing chunks of christmas

it’s such a hard choice, im almost hoping one falls through just to make it easy for me because im genuinely so torn. my heart kind of says midwife, i think it would be a lovely job overall and much more positive, but then my mum has tried to veer me away from it as she thinks its ‘gone downhill’ from when she started and she doesn’t love it as much, says management is often difficult to work with and dont offer much support etc. but then my head says police is more logical - i have a law degree hence the graduate scheme so i already have the backing knowledge of why the police do what they do etc, plus the pay whilst training, plus the hours as a detective aren’t as bad as the hours in midwifery as in shift patterns are more set. as for the misogyny im fortunately not the type who would sit and quietly accept anything like that and if i experienced it i would happily seek help from a higher up/whistleblow etc.

just so torn - if there’s any female police officers or any more midwives on here i’d love to hear your thoughts

also to add i did a year of adult nursing degree 8 years ago that i miss everyday. i left for personal reasons nothing to do with the course and its my biggest regret. which makes me sway toward midwifery slightly as i love working in a hospital setting

I’m a female police officer, the misogyny is almost gone. The ‘Gene Hunt’ generation are almost all retired. It’s not stood for anymore. I watched the panorama documentary and I can say I’ve not heard people talk like that awful sergeant was talking in the last decade. There will always be idiots in every job, but it’s a time now when you can stand up for yourself and others.
I found I worked my longest hours when working as a detective as when something is happening you can’t just hand it over to the next shift (like you can on response policing for example). TV show 24 hours in police custody is a real reflection on being a detective. The cases they show are not uncommon, it reflects what being a detective is like and shows the hours you have to put in. As a detective, I found finishing work two hours late was standard and I considered that finishing on time! Not unusual when you have someone in custody to work 16 hours, go home for 3/4 hours sleep and then back to the office to carry on. That said, it’s brilliant work when you get good results for victims.

that’s a great insight - thank you so much!