I have a disability- will nursing degree be made accessible for me?

[Theyneverknow]

I’m interested in undertaking a nursing degree. (I’m early 30s with 2 children in school)

I have an autoimmune disease and am under consultant care. This is fairly stable but I do get flare ups every few years.

I find that over exertion and stress as well as viral illness can trigger my condition.

I think that I would make an excellent nurse. I already work in healthcare and have a BSc as an Allied Health professional. However currently I work at the hospital part time and this works well for me.

I am worried that the student placement hours (12 hour shifts 3-4 days per week) 40 hour work weeks etc could trigger my auto immune disease flare.

Has anyone else dealt with similar? Has your university been able to make a reasonable adjustment? For example part time placement hours would work well. I would cope fine full time theory/ university. But being on my feel 40 hours per week for weeks on end concerns me.

One in law and one in psychology.

They couldn’t reduce clinical hours. There is no opportunity for part time study at all. Afaik courses are validated as either a full time or part time course and the university has to stick to what they’ve been validated as. The other issue is finance, you receive money on the understanding you’d be full time.

the other issue is you say you’d catch up the following year but you have no way of knowing if you could. If you’re too ill one year to do all your hours then how could you know you’d be well enough the following year to do extra? My uni is very lenient (more than others I’ve worked at) and we will let students carry a small number of hours over each year (around 100). Ime though students that do this the deficit usually increases the next year. They “finish” year 3 unable to qualify as they haven’t done all their hours. We then try to get them extra weeks placement into Sept/oct after they should have finished but there is no guarantee we can do that as other cohorts are out.

if someone becomes unwell it depends how long they’re unwell for. They can be signed off sick for 2-3 weeks. Any longer than that and they’d really have to be interrupting for a year. They couldn’t be signed off for say 6 weeks and come back after 6 weeks. They’d have missed too much theory or too much placement and the course would have moved on to the next block.

But do definitely talk to the specific university you’re interested in,they will all have different rules possibly.

If you are already Band 6 then dont underestimate the drop in salary and the additional stress.

If your condition flares under stress then you are almost guaranteed to suffer poor health by doing this.

Placements are not particularly flexible and require you to follow shift patterns of mentors etc.

What sort of nursing do your see yourself doing?

I ask because community is often seen as a slightly easier role when it really isn't. Lots and lots of travelling, twilight's etc

I’m a nursing lecturer and would agree with pp about the flexibility available to you. The accelerated MSc programme is pretty full on and even though you have less hours to do they are packed in to two years. Don’t forget the academic stress of working at level 7/MSc on top of clinical hours.

I find that whilst universities are keen to make adjustments for disabilities the placement areas have a different definition of reasonable.

It would be great if you could complete the programme but it can be punishing even for the fit and healthy. The risk of not being able to complete the programme is quite high - yet you will potentially still have a debt with nothing to show.