Categories: uncategorized, nursing
Tags: identity, registration, nursing
Date: 09 September 2008 17:24:02
This afternoon I sent off my form to the NMC (Nursing and Midwifery Council) confirming that I am going to lapse my nurse registration as I haven't done enough hours work in the last 3 years. All those years of training and then practice, and come the end of next week I won't be able to do it any more. Not that I've done any of it at all for the last two years anyway, and only for a couple of weeks for the year before that, but it still feels really really weird that I can't say "I am a nurse" or "I am a health visitor" any more. "I was a nurse" isn't the same really. Being able to say "I am a ...." was a really important part of my sense of identity back in the day, I liked that when I said "I am a health visitor" people (in the UK at any rate) basically knew what I was talking about - "I am a PhD student" doesn't have the same sense of identity about it, other than with other PhD students (and then tends to elicit a look of sympathy or raised eyebrows rather than the "ahaaa!!" of "I am a nurse").
I tried to find out about return to practice courses, because once I finish the PhD I do want to go back into some sort of nursing practice. The English NHS number took me to a not-very-helpful call centre, but the woman at the Scottish number was much more helpful. I'll see what the various blurb they're sending me says - I need to think about when to apply for a course, given when my PhD money runs out and various other stuff.