“Life is full of beauty. Notice it. Notice the bumble bee, the small child, and the smiling faces. Smell the rain, and feel the wind. Live your life to the fullest potential, and fight for your dreams.” Ashley Smith.

ramblings-totally NOT crafty related!

I can see this blog is slowly becoming a craft blog as I become weirdly more attracted to fabric, thread & yarn but it did start out as an 'anything goes' blog and I feel the need to talk about what is going on in my head right now and keeping me awake at crazy hours! Who knows, maybe one of my delightful & loverly readers will have some wisdom to share with me.
So, the story is: im a registered nurse. I graduated from university in 2006. For the first 3 years of my career I worked as a general nurse in lots of different areas (emergency, high dependency, medical, surgical & paediatrics). Since April last year I have been working in an intensive care unit which is classed as a level 2 unit (meaning we get very sick patients but really really sick patients like trauma or neuro are sent to the bigger hospitals). During this time I have completed a program called transition which is a 12 month program and gives me 2 subjects credit towards a postgraduate course at university in the specialty of intensive care. Now my plan so far is to go back to university next year and do the remaining 2 subjects I need to get a postgrad certificate. From this I can then study further towards a postgrad diploma or further into a masters degree. Right now im thinking I would definetely like to get the postgrad diploma level but am still unsure about masters level. The problem with nursing in QLD is that there is a HUGE shortage of specialist nurses and while they are making more uni placements for student nurses, I fear that in say 10yrs time it will become impossible to move up the career ladder without extra qualifications as these specialist roles become filled.
I cant decide if intensive care nursing is the specialist field I want to be a part of. Im quite happy in the little hospital I work in now but I fear that not having the bigger hospital experience will drag me down. I have been toying with the idea of maybe applying for a job in a big hospital intensive care while I study to get those few years experience. The only thing stopping me is that I HATE driving! It would be a good 1hr commute to the big hospital compared to the 10min drive in my current job. The other thing is, my husband & I are planning to start a family in 3-4 years and I really dont like the idea of spending 2hrs a day driving to work when I have kids. Having a family and being there for my children is not something I will sacrifice. But then again I love my job and really feel if I put my mind towards it I could really move towards having a bigger role in intensive care nursing. Im also interested in the idea of being a teacher/facilitator to student nurses. I love having student nurses and they always say they enjoy working with me and learn something and I feel I would be good at that job. But then again im thinking maybe that is a 'down-the-road' kinda job and I should further my experience in ICU nursing first.
My husband is a student paramedic & he will be fully qualified next year. Now after he is qualified he has dreams of going abroad (with me of course) to work all over Australia & overseas in our respective fields. Im scared this only throw another spanner into the works in relation to advancing my career. And of course there is the added cost of more study. I would like to own my own home before we have kids and it will probably cost me another $20,000 in more study. Of course there is the added benefit of getting paid more for having that qualification.
So as you can see I am really stuck as to what direction I want my career to go in and its doing my head in! But it does feel good to get it off my chest and write it down. Think I will go do some knitting to calm me down!

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