Why did I get into nursing?

It’s interesting to look back and think about why I decided to go into nursing. A lot of people knew for years they wanted to be a nurse – I didn’t. When I was in secondary school for a while I wanted to be a clinical psychologist. I always liked the thought of helping people through their issues and having a therapeutic relationship with them. I even applied for psychology at uni. It was only after I sent of my UCAS application that I got an ear-worm of thinking I should have applied for nursing.

My Granny always said to me growing up she thought I should be a nurse, and I did consider it for a while. But I didn’t think I’d like the long hours or all the physical work, and I didn’t think I’d be particularly good at it. I thought a nice 9-5 would be the way to go. But then I started really thinking about it and realised I did want to do it. I was just putting myself off the idea because I didn’t have confidence.

As fate would have it I didn’t get accepted onto the psychology degree I wanted, and while I was devastated at the time I took it as an opportunity to apply for nursing, with psychology as a back-up. I actually didn’t get into nursing that time, but I did get onto the psychology course and even studied it for a year. I loved it but couldn’t get rid of the nagging feeling that nursing was what I was meant to do. So I applied again and this time got it.

I applied for learning disability nursing because I grew up with a cousin who had a learning disability and we were around each other a lot growing up. My experiences with him led me to doing work experience and other projects within his school, which gave me more exposure to people with learning disabilities. I learned I actually liked working with people, but especially that population. I’m grateful that I chose learning disability nursing, because while I love nursing generally – I banked as a nursing assistant in general medical wards while studying – I have just never had the same love for it as I do with learning disability nursing.