{"id":21035,"date":"2022-05-10T07:00:21","date_gmt":"2022-05-10T06:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ounews.co\/?p=21035"},"modified":"2022-05-10T07:00:21","modified_gmt":"2022-05-10T06:00:21","slug":"your-first-career-doesnt-have-to-be-your-final-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/student-stories\/your-first-career-doesnt-have-to-be-your-final-one\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Your first career doesn\u2019t have to be your final one\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paul Gardner-Smith has just completed his Open University Registered Nurse Degree Apprenticeship<\/a> as part of a drastic career change from secondary school teacher to nurse.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s now living his dream career as a Registered Nurse and has already created an inspired \u2018buddy\u2019 system to support the next generation of nursing apprentices.<\/p>\n

As part of Paul\u2019s mentoring system, the next wave of apprentices at the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust\u00a0will be \u2018buddied up\u2019 with a student part-way through their course. Not only will new apprentices get extra support, the buddies will gain extra skills as they progress, as Paul explained:<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving not long experienced life as a new apprentice myself, I know this will be a helpful system for the Trust, the new starters and the buddies. New starters will have access to a more experienced mentor-type figure who has recently been through the apprenticeship course. This mid-course apprentice will be known as a buddy. Buddies will be able to tick off the proficiencies that they\u2019re expected to demonstrate in their role by taking part in the programme.\u201d<\/p>\n

A new nursing career<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Paul always wanted to be a nurse but fell into teaching straight after school.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cBefore I left school, I wanted to go into nursing, but I ended up supporting people with learning difficulties and got a degree from the University of Leicester. When I met my now wife, I was moving to Oxford and decided it would be a good time to make the change.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore I moved, I got a job at the hospital in Leicester working as a Nursing Assistant, then I was fortunate enough to find a similar role in Oxford at the Emergency Assessment Unit. It was there that I saw an opportunity on the Trust\u2019s intranet to do an OU apprenticeship nursing degree. I wanted to be a nurse, I wanted to progress my career.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paul spoke to his manager and the rest is history. The opportunity meant he could study on the job, complete external placements around the Trust and be afforded study time each week. His placements included working in a bone infection unit, a neuroscience ward and a community health visiting team.<\/p>\n

Student Leadership Programme success<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Paul came up with the idea for the buddy system when he was accepted onto the Council of Deans Student Leadership Programme<\/a>, which his Open University tutor suggested he apply for.<\/p>\n

The annual Programme recruits first and second-year pre-registration students who it believes could be future leaders and these students become affectionately known as #150leaders. It aims to promote and develop leadership skills among future nursing, midwifery and allied health professionals.<\/p>\n

Paul said: \u201cMy tutor, Kim Liggins, encouraged me to apply for the Programme because she felt I would be a good candidate. It was a written application and I was one of just two apprentices to be accepted onto the Programme.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs part of the Programme, you have to undertake a mini leadership project to aid and support other new students, so I thought \u2018What would be beneficial from both a Trust and a student point of view?\u2019. That was when I came up with the buddy programme idea.\u201d<\/p>\n

Buddy system in action<\/strong><\/h3>\n

So far, Paul has recruited six buddies and has 12 new starters allocated to them.\u00a0As part of the project, he\u2019s also created an induction process using materials from the OU and the clinical education team within his Trust.<\/p>\n

In recognition of his work, he has been invited to the Florence Nightingale Service 2022 at Westminster Abbey in May.<\/p>\n

Forever championing students<\/strong><\/h3>\n

This isn’t the first time Paul has championed fellow students. During the Covid-19 pandemic, he set up student peer support groups for students whose courses had been affected. This was despite facing his own personal challenges during his degree \u2013 including having his first child.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cHaving my little girl was challenging and meant it was a juggle in my second year, but she was what kept me going. I did it all for her, I wanted to set an example and show her that it doesn\u2019t matter if you don\u2019t get it right first time. Your first career doesn\u2019t have to be your final career.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got my nursing position!\u201d<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Paul says his apprenticeship degree was a great way to learn, and has already helped him to progress to bigger things.<\/p>\n

\u201cLearning on the job meant I could put my learning into practice immediately. That enhances your work,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m feeling very fortunate that I\u2019ve now got my nursing position. I\u2019ll be working in the Emergency Assessment Unit \u2013 so I\u2019m going back to where I started which is nice as they supported me to do my degree initially.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo anyone thinking of doing an OU degree apprenticeship I\u2019d say take a chance and do it. You won\u2019t regret it!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cThanks to my OU study I\u2019m definitely more open to new ideas and different ways of studying.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Paul Gardner-Smith has just completed his Open University Registered Nurse Degree Apprenticeship as part of a drastic career change from secondary school teacher to nurse. He\u2019s now living his dream career as a Registered Nurse and has already created an inspired \u2018buddy\u2019 system to support the next generation of nursing apprentices. As part of Paul\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":21074,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[1525,1640,1643,2146],"class_list":["post-21035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-student-stories","tag-news-home","tag-ou-home","tag-ou-news","tag-students"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}