To do a second degree in nursing or one of the allied health professions?

[okeee]

I've always wanted to work in healthcare, but been put off it for various reasons. I have good qualifications which will help the transition (a degree and MSc in molecular biology). I've recently quit my job with nothing lined up due to needing a complete break and a chance to reflect on what I want to do next.

I'm considering applying for a second degree in nursing or one of the allied health professions, I think I can squeeze in an application for the September 2023 intake.

Has anyone else done this? How did you know it was the right decision for them? Are you happy with the decision?

I'm considering children's nursing, radiography or SLT. I have no idea how to choose between them.

I'm not an HCP, but that sounds like a great idea. Motivated mature career changers are good for any organisation.

I would try to get some experience in each setting before applying. Friend’s DD was similarly qualified and wanted to do child psychology. She got a job on a child MH ward as an assistant and realised the role was very different to what she’d imagined. She’s now training as a MH nurse and plans to specialise in paediatrics.

Then apply next year. Your choices are wildly different.

I'm a nurse and I personally think you ought to study radiography!

you can easily do this. but be aware, pay for nurses is a joke and the working conditions right now are pretty dismal. something like optometry, audiology or radiography might be good options.

@okeee - you really need to browse the threads on the Mature Study and Retraining board.

There are several threads on Nurse / healthcare training.

(MNHQ will also move your own thread there if you ask via the Report button.)

May I ask why you think this please, think it would be useful to hear from a nurse's perspective :) Thank you

Therapeutic radiography? The hours are all days, no weekends, and the extended roles allow you to really expand in the future if you wanted.
Or train on the job as a nuclear medicine technician or physiological measurement.

Depends a bit whether you'd prefer technical work with patients or a longer term relationship with them as well

You can do a MSc in nursing with a relevant degree so two years rather than three. Not sure if there is the same offering for radiography/other AHPs.

I am also considering retraining in Speech and Language therapy, as I have seen how it benefitted my father in the early stages of his dementia and it seems like an interesting job.

Can you not just do a conversion masters, which would be two years rather than another four years of a degree to fund?

I tend to think the allied health professions are a bit more family friendly in terms of work/ life balance. You're not on the front line like doctors or nurses, and no crazy shifts.

I think you need to consider what kind of a lifestyle you would want. Some roles are 27/7 365 days a year - such as nursing. Others are more Mon-Fri office hours such as SALT or Dietitian. Physio has more scope for private work if you choose.

I say this as a nurse (where getting AL in school holidays is very tricky because everyone else wants it too)

With your msc would you consider clinical scientists training?

https://www.healthcareers.nhs.uk/career-planning/study-and-training/graduate-training-opportunities/nhs-scientist-training-programme

Massive shortage of radiographers!!

I've applied for this this year and haven't been successful unfortunately. It's extremely competitive and applications are only open once a year (January). I'm on the shortlist but think 8 people would need to fail their interviews (rare) or withdraw (even rarer lol) for me to have a chance at it this year

I'm a radiographer. It's a great career, so many opportunities for career progression, development and changing modalities.

I only stayed in main x-ray for a year then moved onto mammography, after that CT, then MRI. There's also ultrasound, research, nuclear medicine and PET/CT as options. There's scope for advanced practice in every modality.

It can be done as an Msc too.

That sounds really interesting. I have a couple of questions -

Do you have to interpret the images or just conduct the scans and maintain the machines?
Could you tell me what a typical day is like? Are there good job prospects?

Did you have relevant experience before you got on the course? Or is that needed?

@farmageddon

No relevant experience needed - I did a couple of days work experience at a hospital first though.

No we just scan and don't interpret.

However career progression to complete further study to interpret scans is common practice, especially in plain film x-ray and mammography. There's a shortage of radiologists so advanced practice is encouraged.

As a student and newly qualified plain film radiographer you would be on a rotation around the hospital typically a week or two in each area - so you would rotate through A&E, outpatient x-ray, mobile x-rays (NNU, wards and ITU), theatre, endoscopy imaging, interventional, barium studies, pain clinics (spinal/joint steroid injection imaging) and most hospitals also CT. This is typical of a large hospital anyway. So it's really varied unless you specialise in another imaging modality.

Typically in A&E for example, you would arrive on shift. Your senior will have organised if you're x-raying in A&E or needed elsewhere in the hospital. Then you pick up x-ray requests as they come through and x-ray the patients, your colleagues will be around for help with the more challenging ones and often you'll be called to resus to x-ray there too.

We carry out quality tests on the machines usually on late or night shifts and any problems are reported to engineers, so aside from turning them off and on we don't get too involved with having to fix them!

Ooh.and the job prospects are brilliant. Most radiographers progress to higher bands after about 6-12 months or so..

Lots of opportunities to progress, there are even Consultant Radiographers

What about Occupational Health? Good money for the healthcare professionals I work with ( im admin and my wage isnt great) but mainly Mon to Fri hours and they are crying out for qualified staff....

I’d only recommend nursing if advanced practice is something you’re interested in further down the line. Otherwise the pay just isn’t good enough.

Just dropping in to plug podiatry 🙂 I retrained in my 30s and it’s been fab. So many different routes to go down depending on what interests you.

Children’s nursing, radiography and SLT seem quite different roles to me, what appeals about each of them?

I’m a midwife and I’d agree. I’d prioritise any sector where realistically you only see one patient at a time. So radiography, OT, physio, SLt.

Not a career where you are running from bed to bed, with buzzers going off and no time to give the care you want.

saying that there is opportunity in nursing to get off the wards. Not sure how competitive it is.

20 years ago I was offered both therapeutic radiography and midwifery and chose midwifery. Not sure I made the right choice but I was worried there might be a lot physics involved in radiography.

One thing to think about with nurse training are the placements - possibility lot of travel time and anti-social hours.

have you thought about applying for a Physician's Associate course ?

Those are 3 pretty different areas, each with many specialties within. I think you need to look into each one more personally. Any of those degrees is going to be a big commitment, and yes, definitely consider placements and future working hours / progression / pay etc.

I'm a Radiographer but I hate it so not sure my opinion is useful. I definitely wouldn't choose it again now if had to pay to do the degree which I believe some students now have to. I have been doing it for nearly 20 years though so probably just burned out. Some of the shifts are brutal especially the nights when you are sole radiographer in a hospital and being pulled every which way. There are loads of vacancies which is great for getting a job but lots of depts are short staffed and incredibly stressful. Progression is so much easier than it used to be though along with entrance into specialties like ultrasound which was so difficult to get into when I qualified. There were definitely times when I enjoyed it at first but I was in my early 20s and didn't need much sleep.
I left the NHS when I had kids and it's marginally better but at this point I feel like I've done it all and it simultaneously bores me to tears and is v stressful. The idea of another 20+ years as a Radiographer is so depressing.

I think I’d go for SLT or OT, or perhaps dietician-definitely an allied HP rather than nursing.
(I have been a qualified nurse for 16years)