\n<\/p>\n
N<\/span>ick Dowling was the only person in the doctor\u2019s waiting room when the practice nurse came out, glanced around and said to the receptionist with a confused look: \u201cI was expecting to meet a student here.\u201d Dowling raised his hand. At 60, he has undertaken an apprenticeship and hopes to qualify as a registered nursing associate this autumn.<\/p>\n Dowling had worked for decades in engineering and manufacturing, but his latest placements have taken him from a general practice to a psychiatric unit, from ward nursing to urgent treatment centres. Sometimes the shifts are 12 hours long, and, at \u00a314 an hour, pay less than he has earned in decades. So why is he doing it?<\/p>\n He grew up in Dundalk in the Republic of Ireland, so close to the border with Northern Ireland that during the Troubles it was nicknamed El Paso. He graduated from a quality engineering degree in the mid-1980s, and, at 21, like many of his peers, headed to the US for the summer.<\/p>\n While living in digs in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, he found work at a local nursing home. Dowling became a nurse\u2019s aide on a \u201ctotal care\u201d dementia ward, feeding patients and emptying their bedpans.<\/p>\n The shock and initial distaste were so great, he vowed not to return after his first shift. But the senior nurse persuaded him to stick at it \u2013 \u201cprobably because of the level of care she showed for the patients\u201d, he says. He stayed for six months, after which he settled in England and into a \u201cproper job\u201d and thought little more of it.<\/p>\n The \u201cproper\u201d career was in quality management for a range of manufacturing companies, after which Dowling moved into consultancy, delivering leadership and change-management training with a friend who was a psychologist. At the time, around 2012, Dowling says neuroscience was \u201cstill very emergent, and the idea of neuroplasticity\u201d that underpinned their approach \u201clargely unknown\u201d.<\/p>\n He worked on legacy projects including Crossrail in London, the Medupi power station in South Africa, and the civilianisation of the police force in Northern Ireland. The idea was to approach change \u201cfrom a wellbeing point of view: how can we make the workplace better for employees? Because if it\u2019s better for them, if their mental health is better, their physical health is better \u2026 organisations will perform better.\u201d<\/p>\n After a few years, Dowling saw a poster advertising volunteering opportunities with the ambulance service near where he lived in West Sussex.<\/p>\n He cannot remember where he saw the poster, nor why it spoke to him \u2013 at the time, he was happy in his work. But he signed up and became a first responder to \u201cacute medical emergencies in the community: chest pains, strokes, trauma, falls, burns, bangs, anything and everything\u201d.<\/p>\n When Covid hit in 2020, Dowling\u2019s consultancy work went online. \u201cSuddenly, you\u2019re just talking to a screen,\u201d he says. \u201cYou\u2019re getting nothing back from it. No energy. It\u2019s a very different proposition. I got bored quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the voluntary work became more urgent: from taking the temperature of ambulance crews to delivering Covid tests, moving ambulances, and running sustenance trucks for crew.<\/p>\n Rather than having a career plan, Dowling has always kept in mind the advice he once heard to keep his \u201ceyes open to opportunities and have the courage to seize them\u201d.<\/p>\n It was his daughter, a cardiac physiologist, who \u201cpointed me towards the NHS jobs website\u201d, he says. \u201cI knew I needed to start at the bottom. An ad came up for a healthcare assistant with a team called responsive services.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt took me a long time to actually make the connection and think: hang on, I\u2019ve done this work before, as a naive 21-year-old. And then there was something about a circle closing \u2026 And there definitely is now, further down the track.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTS Eliot wrote [in Four Quartets]: \u2018The end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cThere might be a bit of that going on.\u201d<\/p>\n While the original work was accidental, now it is a choice. And although it\u2019s tiring, Dowling hopes to have a seven-year career after he qualifies. As a specialist in change management, does he know why he sought this move?<\/p>\n \u201cI value learning,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd I think learning and change are synonymous.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Nick Dowling was the only person in the doctor\u2019s waiting room when the practice nurse came out, glanced around and said to the receptionist with a confused look: \u201cI was expecting to meet a student here.\u201d Dowling raised his hand. At 60, he has undertaken an apprenticeship and hopes to qualify as a registered nursing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50362,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[13080,6579,779,337,1253,2760,1186,1587,891],"class_list":{"0":"post-50361","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-beginning","9":"tag-fell","10":"tag-job","11":"tag-life","12":"tag-love","13":"tag-nursing","14":"tag-online","15":"tag-start","16":"tag-style"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/50362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}