Newly graduated non-spanish speaking nurse moving to Spain!!!! NEEDS HELP!!!

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suzanne4, RN

26,410 Posts

Talk to your embassy in Spain, they may have a list of people that have contacted them for expat nurses who want to work there caring for seniors at home. It just depends on what type of nursing that you want to do or are interested in.

Good luck in what ever avenue that you decide to follow. Keep us posted as to what you finally end up doing. :balloons:

mariaf

4 Posts

Yes that's true; not everyone would want to work in that area.

good idea about the Embassy - thanks.

Still a while to go before qualifying, but will let u all know how it turns out!

Take care all

Maria

Jo-Jo

1 Post

Hi Mariaf

Help!! I am due to start Nurse training this September which is only a matter of weeks away. My husband and I are aiming to move to Spain where I imagined I would be able to get a job as a nurse if I was fluent in Spanish. After reading your notes, I realise now that this may be a lot tougher than I imagined. I do not want to go through 3 years of training if there is not much chance of me getting a job at the end of it. I was wondering if you had taken the plunge and moved to Spain and managed to get a nursing job out there, or if you could offer me any advice at all???

I would be very greatful, thanks.

Thanks Trauma for your encouragement.

Also for your honesty Suzanne.

However I will not let 4 years of nursing training go to waste! Having spent time as both a patient and visitor in Spanish hospitals, my view is that their nursing care is nothing to write home about anyway. Family/visitors are usually expected to administer all personal care, observe IV drip status etc. I understand this is beginning to change - very slowly, as with all in Spain. Plus, nurses are poorly paid.

If I cannot find employment of the type you have both mentioned, then I will probably go down the translation/interpreting route. However, one area which is growing fast in Spain is the area of homecare. More and more British are retiring and spending their last days on 'The Costas'. Spain offers the traditional routes for the elderly and infirm of

1) family care (not an option for most expatriates) or

2) a nursing home.

However, many expats are British and are accustomed to a UK social services system of homecare, and want and expect to remain in their own homes as long as possible. They very often have resources to pay for homecare, and I have been told by some of them that a nurse trained in the UK or US or elsewhere familiar to them, with or without post-reg experience, would be preferable. Expats sometimes complain that native Spanish nurses - and doctors - have a manner which is, shall we say (I don't want to start a war!) rather more brusque in areas such as pain relief. Let's just say the empathy is not always as visible?! :)

Finally (thank you all for bearing with me) a note on the Castilian/Catalan topic. Having spent 10 yrs or so living in different parts of Spain (I remember I took my written driving test in Spanish and actually passed first time, whereas some of my Spanish colleagues didn't!) I would recommend that, if you are going to learn one version of Spanish, you learn ordinary Castilian (Castellano) Spanish. This is because it is understood everywhere you go in Spain. Yes, even by local-dialect speakers who claim not to understand it. They do. If you specialise in learning Catalan, Aragonese, Valenciano or any other Spanish dialect you risk being misunderstood if you move to another part of Spain. The Catalonians, unlike other areas proud of their local dialect, have succeeded in gaining official recognition for it as a separate language, and as such local schools teach all subjects in it (much to the fury of non-local Spaniards and foreigners alike). Catalan banks will send you letters in Catalan. But, I repeat, it is not necessary to learn it. Ask for it 'en Castellano'!

Wishing you all well

Maria

Student Nurse

Age 39 and feeling it :chuckle

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