I'm a nurse I have been nursing for nearly 33 years I am in the leaving long term hopefully for good.
Nearly every Trust now has long days 7am-8ish pm, we rarely get a break, I often don't get to the loo but it doesn't matter because we've not drunk or ate anything in 12 hours, you hit the ground running from the moment you walk in the door and stagger home at the end of the day. Nearly all nurses work a mixture of shifts, nights and days often in the same week, so for example long day Wed, night Thursday and long day Saturday, this plays havoc with you body clock, research has shown that night workers have a higher incidence of dementia, coronary heart disease and breast cancer amongst other things. Few trusts operate a fixed rota. Basically there is nothing family friendly about the hours, or the shift patterns, annual leave at Xmas is virtually unheard of, many trusts restrict how much annual leave you can take in school holidays, a friend is only allowed to take 1 week of her annual leave during school holidays, nearly all trusts operate a electronic rota system this means that your often only guaranteed 1 request a month, I've not been given weekends off for a wedding and a very special family occasion colleagues report the same thing.
Now we come to the work load, there are 25000+ nursing vacancies in the NHS, I was told by someone the other day that even if every trained nurse in the UK was working there would still be 6000 vacancies. The nurse/patient ration is getting higher and higher 1 nurse to 16 patients (adults) is now very common. Trained nurses do not do bed baths and dive out bed pans anymore, they are expected to assess patients and make sound clinical decisions, our medical colleagues are also stretched, nurses are making often life and death decisions, and I've no problem with this but not with the current high nurse to patient ratio. We are also often the main person liasing with relatives, break bad news, comforting caring reaching out a hand to a total stranger and helping then and their relatives through terribly difficult times. Again I've no problem with this but I do not have the time to do it properly. Most of us entered a caring profession but we are not "caring" for our patients or their families, patients say the nurses never talk to them but in the majority of cases we don't get time to even say hello let alone anything more meaningful.
It's easy to assume that you go home at the end of the day and that's it, for a start many nurses don't get off duty on time because there are insufficient staff coming onto the next shift staying for a hour or so to help colleagues out is becoming increasingly common. Most nurses also have areas they are specifically responsible for and are given no time to do their in work hours, so will be working on these areas in their own time, getting funding for study fees is increasingly rare and now getting paid to attend training is very rare, you go in your own time. We have to complete a certain number of study hours to maintain our registration, (that's just the basic stuff) my trust will now only give us 6 paid ours a year to do this, all the rest in my own time including 40+ hours of on line mandatory training a year. Medicine is moving at a rapid rate as nurses we have to be up to date with these changes, so for example I am expected to spot errors in doses/type of drug prescribed by doctors, failure to do so could at best result in my going through a disciplinary at worst loosing my registration. For example a junior doctor two weeks ago prescribed completely the wrong drug for a patient (the NICE guildlines have recently changed) I am expected to spot this and point it out. So you have to be constantly keeping on top of current changes (again in your own time) If you want to seriously progress in your career you will have to do a lot more than this.
A few more things: we are up to our eyeballs in paper work, most people can't believe how much we now do, family expectation is totally out of step with the way the NHS is, patients and relatives are getting increasingly aggressive both physically and verbally, (sometimes it's justified), if your Hospital based you usually now pay to park your car (day night bank holidays etc), and can even be restricted on how often you can park I'm only allowed to park on site 4 days a fortnight I work 6 days a fortnight, nick a biscuit because you have eaten in 10 hours and you could face a discplinery, have to many days off sick we're allowed 6 a year and you face a disciplinary, we not exactly working in a healthy environment or way. Do get me write no therecate days when I come home totally exhausted but know I've done a good job but these days are becoming increasingly rare, patients are dying or developing major complications because there simply aren't enough nurse to go round, the North Staffs report stated this and it's worse now I can live with this any longer. We have not had any significant pay increase since 2010 I know why the NHS is the biggest employer in Europe they simply can't afford it but it's a big blow. You can work agency (I have done lots over the years) the advantages are: there's currently loads of work except if you work for a premium agency many trusts have banned them. flexibility, often a bit more money although this is now being capped, no departmental politics, you pick and choose where you work, but no sick pay, no NHS pension (1 perk), they usually won't even pay you to do any mandatory training, you can get cancelled up to two hours before you work and not be compensated for this, many nurses don't like moving around you still expected to hit the ground running usually with little induction 10 mins max if your lucky, and some permanent staff are for a reason I can't comprehend thoroughlt unpleasant to agency staff. I could go on and on and on and on. Finally the NHS has had it I've been nursing for 35+ years I've never seen it this bad (most of my age experience say the same thing) I'm already seeing privatisation in many areas and they'll be more this is not why I joined the NHS I can't bear to watch it.
So I've looked at changing my career for a reason Im not going to detail as I don't want to out myself I'm lucky I have other options outside of nursing. I've looked at teaching, I've spent a lot of time in schools observing what's going on. 1. The hours are significantly more family friendly, you will always know when you have to be at work, you may work from home in the evening etc marking planning lessons but you are at home. You will never actually be at work Xmas day or Wednesday night, I've yet to see a teacher work solidly for 12 + hours without getting time to even go to the loo, in most state days school's pupils are there from 8 30 ish till 4ish, yes its busy during those times but I've never seen a teacher not get at last 10 mins break. Teachers in my opinion support each other very well, nurses are notorious for dropping their colleagues in the shit. None I've looked at pay to park in the school car park. But I definitely get the impression teachers are under considerable pressure to their pupils to achieve in exams and it appears syllabuses, exams are constantly changing they are very much at the whim of who ever is in charge of the DoE at the time, this must be incredibly frustrating and generate masses of work and uncertainty. Medical staff are (hopefully) basing their care on research and NICE guildlines etc so we have something concrete to work with and something to challenge if necessary anyone who tries to change things. I get the impression in some areas of teaching it's hard to find a job, and that some teachers are being made redundant this is definitely not true in nursing we are so desperate we'll take anyone we don't even get applicants for our 7 full time vacancies let alone recruit anyone and there are a myriad opportunities. Career progression seems very good, and past experience seems to be taken into consideration.
I've also looked at more admin/managerial jobs, these vary considerably it very much depends on who you work for. But just to give you a flavour of how others work my DH manages a large part of the company he works for, he totally manages 50+ staff including their work, appraisals, disciplinary stuff, hiring, training, plus a constantly changing number of sub contractors, and projects worth millions, he leases with customers clients etc, he starts work at 7am and finishes at 6 45pm on a good day, at least two days a week he drives/trains into London and doesn't get gone before 9pm, he often brings work home and replies to emails/phone calls at the weekends, he gets 4 weeks paid holiday a year (two weeks taken at a fixed time when the company shuts down) and 5 days full sick pay, he contributes into a fairly meaningless occupational pension. We have friends who are corporate lawyers bankers etc they earn amazing money but work 18 hours a day for it get 6 weeks holiday (max) and are constantlt scared a bright thrusting young thing will take their job! He thinks teachers have no idea how many are expected to work!