Are you Hustling backwards?!
Onwards to new adventures!
One of my favourite programmes on the BBC used to be ‘Wanted Down Under’. It followed families who wanted to relocate to Australia or New Zealand, from helping them find homes, jobs while also giving them a reality check via a comparison cost of living between the UK and their dream new life in a bid to find out if the dream was affordable. For some the better salary and cost of living afforded by moving made the dream a reality and for others it meant hustling backwards, with their dreams deferred or abandoned.
Making the decision to leave home and start a new and hopefully better life in a new place or country is something humans have been doing since time immemorial and it’s a decision that is never taken lightly. For some it is the lure of a better work life balance, affording them more family time or more time to indulge in life long hobbies or passions. For others it is the promise of a regular paycheck and the job security that comes with it, a way to support themselves and their families free from worry and stress of not knowing if they would be able to do so day after day. It is this latter reason that i would like to focus on, because more often than not, the lure of a regular paycheck and job security blinds us and we do not take into account the full picture of what the cost will be and if it is at all worth it.
How can i make sure that my take home pay will be sufficient?
In my book ‘ The Extreme Sport of Nursing While Black : A Survival Guide’ , I talk about the importance of negotiating your salary so that you get paid your worth as well as really scrutinising your contract for any issues before signing on the dotted line. While this is still sound advice, i would like to add another tip, especially for Nurses being recruited from abroad, and that is to carry out a cost of living calculation to find out if would be able to live comfortably with the money you would be paid, your take home pay.
The first step would be to find out what your take home pay would be after all deductions, do not be fooled by the salary figure quoted, as that is normally your gross and not net which is likely to be significantly lower! Remember to ask during the recruitment process and not after you have signed your employment contract! The Salary Calculator is a handy site that helps you calculate how much your take home pay would be approximately. You can customise to see your take home pay yearly, monthly, weekly or even daily. This would give you a rough idea of what you are actually being paid and from that you can then do your cost of living calculations.
Armed with this information and your calculations, you can then make an informed decision whether it is worth it to take that job and uproot yourself from all that you know, or if you can negotiate for a better pay or hold out for one or better still, if staying and diversifying your income portfolio would be best. Whatever decision you make, make it work for you and having the full picture salary wise is one step in that direction and towards a financially secure future.
Here’s to Hustling forwards, always!
The Wandering Nurse x
Research Nursing as a career option.
Nursing has evolved over the years and has opened up many career paths, one of them being research nursing. While nurses have always helped in research in one way or another, it is only in recent times that the role of nurses in research both as clinical researchers in their own right as well as helping run clinical studies as research nurses, has truly been recognised and feted, but there is still a long way to go in dispelling the myths that surround Nursing and Research and also Research Nursing. If you have heard of ‘evidence based practice’, wondered why CPR changed from 15:2 compressions/ breaths to 30:2, or why manual handling has changed over time amongst other things , then you have engaged with research.
Who is a Research Nurse and what do they do?
“ A research nurse is a registered nurse who plays an important role in delivering clinical research which in turn improves treatment pathways and patient care” - RCN.ORG
“ Research Nurses bring studies to life” - Lisa Berry, Senior Research Nurse.
According to the Royal College of Nursing(RCN), a career in research nursing offers nurses the opportunity to use core skills, contributing to the development of new evidence and improving patient care.
“Clinical research is essential- It is the only evidence-based method of deciding whether a new approach to treatment or care is better than the current standard, and is essential to diagnose, treat, prevent, and cure disease” - RCN.ORG
I first came across research nursing while working alongside research nurses as a student nurse, working as a clinical trials assistant in a clinical trials unit, working with healthy volunteers, testing new drugs and devices. Years later after qualifying i worked as a research nurse, a role that was very different from ward based nursing but still utilised the clinical and nursing skills gained whilst working on the wards. There is this disconnect between ward based nurses and research nurses, a misunderstanding amongst nurses that research nurses do not really do much and are not really ‘Nurses’. The roles, while different all require use of nursing and clinical skills. The national body that is responsible for research in the U.K, the National Institute for Health Research ( NIHR) is trying to bridge this gap with their ‘Clinical research is everyone’s future’ which aims to embed a research culture across the whole of the NHS by encouraging a research positive culture and encouraging all NHS staff to be research aware and active. Some NHS trusts with Research and Development (R&D) departments have short/ week long clinical placements as part of the student nurse pathway which is a great way for students to be exposed to the practical side of clinical research.
As a research nurse you work within a wider team as well as autonomously within Good Clinical Practice(GCP) guidelines and your duties include but are not limited to:
Acting as a patients advocate while supporting them through their treatment as part of a clinical trial.
recruiting patients to clinical trials.
Sample collection and processing
Data collection and submission.
Coordinating clinical studies from initiation, management to completion.
Preparing trial documents, submitting trial documents for regulatory approval.
Managing a team.
How to become a Research Nurse.
It is not possible at the moment to come into research nursing as a newly qualified nurse. Some clinical experience is needed, but there are ways you can still get a so called foot in:
Find out if your Trust has a research and development department or your local research network and what research studies are being run in your hospital/ ward and how you can help the research team. You could be the ward/ department research link nurse.
If you work soley for a nursing agency, you could find out if they have contracts with private research companies where you could do some shifts ( training is always provided).
Do your Good Clinical Practice ( GCP) training. Training opportunities can be found on the NIHR website or via your local /regional Clinical Research Network (CRN)
The above will work in your favour when you decide to apply for a permanent research post. These can be found on the NHS jobs website or other job search sites like indeed . Just search for Research Nurse. You can also apply to work as a research nurse for Clinical Research Organisations ( CRO) , G.P practices and Charities like British heart Foundation, Cancer Research just to name a few.
Things worth noting.
Every research study is unique and has a protocol that determines how the study will be conducted. Detailed study specific training is normally provided before each and every study. Research specific training is provided by the trusts local research and development department or the local clinical research network (CRN) or the research organisation that you work for. If in doubt, always ask. There is always a team of people willing to help.
Research and the research network still has a diversity problem in terms of workforce and in patient/ participant recruitment. This is an area that the NIHR are trying to rectify with their key priority of: Promoting equality, diversity and inclusion in research.
“We are committed to equality, diversity and inclusion in everything we do. Diverse people and communities shape our research, and we strive to make opportunities to participate in research an integral part of everyone’s experience of health and social care services. We develop researchers from multiple disciplines, specialisms, geographies and backgrounds, and work to address barriers to career progression arising from characteristics such as sex, race or disability” - NIHR
As earlier indicated, research nurses work within a wider team but also autonomously , which means at times working alone in terms of patient/ participant recruitment, data collection and input, arranging patient visits and all study related actions that do not require the Principal investigator (PI). This can at times be challenging in terms of getting time off or annual leave. So with this in mind, make sure when you are interviewing for a research nursing post or before you sign any job offer contracts, you:
ask what support network is in place to help with studies.
How many studies would you be expected to manage and if an intensity tool is used to access each study.
who you have as back up for your studies if you are the only one in post and not part of a team especially if it is a speciality specific role, who can cover your studies when you are off or on annual leave.
The current Covid-19 pandemic has helped to highlight the importance of research and the important role research nurses play. The research nurse role is diverse and broad, and everyday is different with patient advocacy at the very heart. You can learn more from the links below.
Useful Links/ Further Reading:
What was your first encounter of racism? Talking Racism with Getrude of World Class Nurse.
As part of Black History Month in the U.K, I talked racism in life in general and in Nursing with World Class Nurse- Getrude on her platform. We also talked about what help is out there for Black Nurses in terms of support.
We also talked abit about my book, it’s inspiration and how it can help Black Nurses. I will be donating a couple of books to World Class Nurse as well.
Click on the link below ⬇️⬇️ to listen to the talk.
https://youtu.be/CPLF0MpgH2o