I started this entry this summer. I was waiting until all the expenses were paid to publish it. As of this week, I’ve finished. The holdup was the schedule vaccinations required by the agency I work for.
Brace yourself, this one is wordy.
$5574.79CAD. This is the cost of getting my licence in the UK. I started this process in the summer of 2016, it is now the summer of 2017. I honestly thought that I’d be back at the bedside in March, maybe April if there was a hiccup in the process. A hiccup, how naive I was. (By the way, there is a shortage of nurses in the UK, but the overall impression I have gotten, by going through this process of licensing, is that the UK governing bodies don’t really give a damn they are short.) Getting this licence has been a hassle every step of the way, and I’m not even sure that it will be worth my time and money. The NMC (Nursing and Midwifery Council) is the licensing body in the UK and they require all paperwork to be submitted in the original form with no evidence of photocopy or forgery. This means that I can not scan any of my paperwork, I had to FedEx the documents to Canada to get completed by various agencies and people and I had to get them FedExed back to the UK. Nearly all the paperwork could have been filled out while I was in Canada and I could have brought it with me, but no, none of the forms I needed were released to me until I was in the UK. Meaning, I had to wait months for all of the paperwork to go back and forth. Some of it was even lost and had to be resubmitted. BAH! I was told that the reason for the ‘original only’ policy was that there was such a high level of forgery of required documents when scans and photocopies were submitted. Ok, but from my perspective, that speaks just as poorly about the system as the people attempting to get a licence. When people lie and cheat, it speaks to the injustice that they face.
Let me digress a moment, I grew up in a Commonwealth country. This means that there are quite a few UK influences on our politics, policies, traditions and customs. But from where I stand, the only things the two countries have in common are, the queen is on our money and we speak the same language, sort of. But I will say this, I’m quite sure that nurses coming to Canada have to wade through the same bullshit I had to. My friend J came from India and has alluded to the ridiculous OSCE she had to write to get licensed in Canada.
Ok, I’ve thought of something else the two countries have in common, each think their nurses are the best in the world and those coming from other countries have to prove themselves worthy. The problem being, each country has higher standards and expectations for foreign trained nurses than domestically trained nurses. For example, if I were to attend the University of Northampton to get my nursing degree, I wouldn’t be required to take the ILETS as a foreign student because English is my first language, but I had to prove I could speak English to the NMC. It was the first exam I had to take. I had to take a Computer Based Test (CBT) based on theory, which I’ve been told no UK grad nurse has to take, and I had to sit the OSCE (Objective Skills Clinical Exam) which is a ‘practical’ bedside exam, again no domestic nursing student is required to sit it. I’ll get back to why I put practical in brackets.
Now, do I think that I should be able to just walk into a UK hospital and flash my Canadian Licence and be able to get a job? No. I understand and agree with a screening process. What I do not agree with is different standards for domestic and foreign trained registered nurses. Do I need to speak Level 5 English to work in a job that literally involves life and death decisions and rapid execution of those decisions? Yes, but according to the ILETS, I can read, write and understand English but I can barely speak it. Do I think I need to show that I understand the theories of nursing? Sure, but again, why the difference in requirements between foreign and domestic nurses? At least with this exam you can get a few questions wrong and still pass. That brings me to the OSCE.
You can fail the OSCE with a 99/100 score. The failure rate is 63%. That means that 63% of foreign trained nurses have to rewrite and repay £992 (~1600CAD). I had to repay. BAH. Prior to the exam I took a prep course, which required me to travel three hours north, stay overnight and I left ill prepared for the exam. The exam is six stations, four with a “patient” -read mannequin-, two for charting, 15 minutes per station. In the first station I had 15 min to assess an asthma pt (but wasn’t required to listen to their lungs, go figure?) discuss smoking cessation and asthma education, and have a personal discussion about what is troubling them the most. As an aside, the invigilator spoke for the mannequin and you were docked points if you turned around and spoke to the invigilator as you were not exhibiting warm and open behaviour by turning your back to the “patient” Did I get all that done in time, barely. It that an acceptable way to nurse? @#%$ no. I had a pt who was short of breath, hypotensive and was desaturating. How much do you think I cared about smoking cessation and asthma education? Anywho, moving on. The rest of the exam went downhill at an exponential rate. I didn’t finish my charting, I may have killed a pt by giving them a med they were allergic to, and when changing a dressing apparently the garbage bag was not in an ideal position -FAIL!.
For the entire experience, my anxiety level was in overdrive. Imagine chasing ephedrine with 7 espresso cups and then sprinkle in the thought that you have been out of work for a year and the financial security of your family is riding on you working. Piece of cake! It’s all worked out though. I passed round two (better mind set in tow), and immediately was hired at St. Thomas in London.
Was the cost of the entire experience worth it…lol. That’s for another blog.
I will say this though. During the whole thing I kept wondering if I should just move on. I decided that even if I didn’t end up back at the bedside, I wasn’t going to let the system tell me what kind of nurse I was (Fight The Man, as my parents generation said. Ironically, if you were to put a face on The Man, it would be a boomer, or even a Gen. Xer). Now that I’m back at the bedside, I pay a different price, less sleep, less time with my boys, less time with my friends. Somedays I don’t know what was more expensive, the licence or the job.
weRNtheBritzone 