Class Project AP/NP

You can use me if you like

What country and state do you work in?

I work in the UK in Wales

What's your current specialty and background?

I work within general surgery now as an advanced nurse practitioner. Before that I worked in a surgical critical care unit, and have also spent quite a bit of time teaching emergency care.

Years of experience, what you like most about nursing?

I've been nursing for 21 years, and there are so many things I love about nursing. I enjoy patient contact, which is why I left teaching, and surgery because we are able to do something for most of our patients that improves their lives, I know that it doesn't always work like that but getting patients better is very rewarding.

Has that changed since being a nurse, if so how?

Not sure, I never wanted to be a nurse I fell into it so I had now preconceptions about what I expected nursing to be. I didn't have a career plan but a friend of my mums was a nurse tutor and they were short of students so I got interviewed and accepted then started training within 2 days. My ideas about nursing has changed as I have gone through my career. I loved bedside nursing and do miss it but found I was getting more frustrated with the little time I was able to spend with my patients and couldn't accept being short staffed any more so I looked for something else. Where i work now I have the time (most of the time) to spend talking to my patients and finding out what is important to them for their care.

Any future goals you wish to achieve in the field of nursing?

I want to finish my MSc but other than that I am in a job that I love, working with a great team of people (both nurses and doctors) so really I have achieved what I wanted. I want to be better at my job and I feel like I am constantly learning so don't ever want that to stop.

What are current issues in your country?

At the moment, financial issues drive healthcare. Most of the trusts are overspent and as providers we seem to spend most of our time justifying what we need to provide for our patients. We need to look at cutting costs and work with less resources and I find this frustrating. If a senior nurse leaves we are asked to look to see if that can be replaced by a junior nurse which means that there are no promotion prospects for junior nurses and we are losing our experienced skill base which is not in the best interests of the patients

Hope this is helpful

MSc is a Masters in Science in Advanced Practice and yes we have the National Health Service in Wales

It is a government run and public money funded service so I guess yes to your first question

hobbies spending time with my family, walking, climbing, Reading thrillers, horse riding, cooking

Hi Sherri, how r u doing? Have a couple more questions. Could you tell me what school you attended? What the order of schooling to become a nurse, for example here in the U.S. I attended a 4yrs undergrad program to get my BSN( Bachelor of Science in Nursing) and now I'm attending a university to get my Masters or Advanced Practice degree as a Family Nurse Practitioner. How are the nurses treated in Wales?

Sorry Desarey, had quite a busy week so only just spotted your questions

The nursing school I went to no longer exists, it's now houses. It was a small community college in my local town

To become a nurse when I did you needed 5 O levels (this is basic secondary school education in the UK) Then I did a 3 year registered general nurse training, at that time is wasn't higher education but we are talking 20 years ago.

I did a diploma in nursing in 1996 and then BSc (Bachelor of Science in Nursing) in 2003 these were both part time courses whilst I worked full time. I then did a Education certificate which allows me to teach in further education in 2004, and I am now back in university part time whilst working full time to get a MSc in Advanced Practice.

Nurses in Wales aren't too badly treated it depends where you work I guess. We have problems with staffing and there is a financial crisis in the NHS which means we are not able to use overtime.

Hi sharrie, I was was just reading some of your blogs and see you have a lot going on. How did you become invloved with the Allnurses website and are you using it as another way to use your education background or to get back into teaching?

I can't honestly remember, I think I did a search whilst looking for a project and just stuck around.