Healthcare career family friendly

[Monika007]

Hi guys, need your advise. What career in healthcare can you recommend as family friendly? I have long experience as a healthcare assistant and wanted to study nursing but we have a massive problem with childcare and it seems I won't be able to do it as have nobody to help us with long days on placement or later in a job. I still would like to study in health related areas but as family comes first I need a course and then a job what is more family friendly: I mean not workig 24/7, have some weekend or Christmas off. What do you think?

Physio or podiatry, things like that. Dietician?

I’m an OT I find it very easy to fit around family life. Never work weekends or Christmas.

Thought about physio and OT seems really nice. What about the time at uni? Did you have plenty of placement? What about holidays?

My friend is in radiotherapy and although she works occasional weekends, it’s generally weekdays 9-5 (ish!)

I did two of my practice placements as part time which helped as both mine were primary school age and the third one was full time but as it was fairly local I was able to manage childcare before and after school so was no issue. In terms of being at uni it worked out to be 3 days a week on the full time course which again I used a child minder before and after school. As long as you can get your childcare ducks in a row I found it to be easily manageable to complete the course.

There are not as many placements as nursing I don’t think with OT. One each academic year IME the rest was face to face uni (although post covid there may be more online learning elements now)

There were no half term breaks so had to sort child care for those but Easter, summer and Christmas were off so not a problem.

Don’t forget healthcare is changing and what’s family friendly now may not be in the future.

Dentistry are the only ones who’ve got it made as the majority are private and demand is high. There’s practices near me that are 4.5 days a week, take it or leave it. You’ve got to admire the profession for sticking to their guns.

I'm starting physio in September, I think most physios work social hours. The placement hours are 1000 over the three years, whereas nursing/midwifery are 2,300-2,500, I think there is a lot more lecture time though. I was quite shocked at how competitive it was to get a place though and the entry requirements were a lot higher than the other courses, pinching myself that I have a place to be honest! OT is meant to be very interesting and rewarding with social hours. OTs and physios often work closely together, I heard a lovely expression the other day 'physios get people walking again, OTs get them dancing again'. It's a very respected role. There's also SALT, podiatry, radiography, pharmacy, optometry but I know very little about those.

I will be qualifying in Podiatry soon. You can work privately or for the NHS. Usually 9-5 type hours, and like most healthcare roles there are a variety of different specialisms. Also quite a few apprenticeships starting to be available now.

To be honest podiatry seems very interesting and it's something what I really never think about... definitelly I need to go for an Open Days at uni

I'm a clinical scientist, which is family friendly but needs a science degree first then postgrad training (which doesn't sound like what you are looking for).

But if you are technically / scientifically minded with science A levels, look at biomedical science or healthcare science practitioner training programmes (PTP) or degree apprenticeships.

Many OT and physio posts are moving to 7 day service. However there are some roles out there still office hours.
When I trained we did 5 placements all of which were fulltime and not childcare friendly (I had to leave at 6am). Also uni insisted on starting 8 45am. I wish more things were family friendly.

My DD did nursing and they did 10 till 3 3 days a week unless they were on placement.

I've just finished speech and language therapy - accepted a role which is pretty standard "office" hours - there were a few out there where you were expected to cover 8-8 on a rota but these are mainly crisis-based ones.

As for placements - we had one placement day a week first year which was a bit of a pain as the placement area was limited and inconvenient; second year we did blocked placements for about 8 weeks - mine was in a school so school hours but about an hour's travel away; third year we did a 10 week placement block (with flexibility for those who needed longer placements over a few days a week) which again I found was standard 8.30-4.30 hours.