I am a nurse again!

After all these years of midwifery, I have reactivated my nurse registration.

I am bucking the trend in Australia because an increasing number of midwives are letting go of their nurse registration. This is because of a number of reasons, not least because midwives do not identify as nurses, and do not want to have to maintain two sets of regulatory requirements.

You could be forgiven for wondering how on earth I have managed to register as a nurse when I have such a prominent midwifery role. I have to say that it was a lot easier than I thought because so much of what I do in my day job can also be applied to nursing.

I don't have any plans to dash off and become the next Florence Nightingale. But I do think it's handy to have my nursing registration up my sleeve in case I ever decide to do something different one day, like work in a rural or remote area of Australia.

Are you a midwife who also has a nurse qualification? Have you maintained your nurse registration, or let it go?  How easy is it to maintain two professional registrations in your country?

Coaching. An effective way to adddess work-life pressures?

 BeyondBlue is an Australian organisation that addresses depression and mental health issues. One of the recent initiatives it has released is the NewAccess coaching service. This is a six week coaching service offered to people who wish to devise mechanisms and solutions to deal with particular work-life pressures or issues.

I enrolled into this program a few weeks ago and have one session left. I decided to take part because it's a free service - yes, I am that shallow! -  and I thought it would be interesting to access a coaching service. I have spent many years looking at mentoring and trying to tease out what the difference is between mentoring, coaching, preceptorship and counseling. I hoped that by receiving coaching I would be able to further tease out what is involved, and how it may be beneficial for professional development.

I decided to focus on how to better manage my work-life commitments. If the conversations I have with friends and colleagues are any thing to go by, this is a problems that many of us face. I'll talk a little more about what I learned in my next post.

I have found the program to be immensely beneficial. I talk to my coach by phone - we've never met in person. The 30 minutes or so that we've spent together have given me time out to think about the changes I can make to my life, and how to better manage my commitments. Whilst my coach has lent me a sympathetic ear, she has also given me strategies to try out in my life. None of it has been rocket science, or even stuff that I didn't already know.  But I have found it very useful to have someone to be accountable to, and have the coach layer out activities for me week by week which has helped me see the wood for the trees.

The only problem with NewAccess is that it has limited availability in Australia.

I would certainly recommend the program to people who have access; in Adelaide, Canberra and New South Wales.  I have enjoyed having a coach who I have found to be someone who not only listens to my issues but also offers me ideas about how to manage those issues effectively.

This experience has certainly opened my eyes to the benefits of coaching, and I am going to look at how I can continue to access coaching in the new year. The only snag to professional coaching services that I can see, is the expense.

Have you ever received coaching for work? How did you find it?


Image - Kim Paulin: https://www.flickr.com/photos/axlape/6875179639


 

 

Trying out telephone coaching to help me lose weight

Having admitted that I have terrible trouble losing weight and keeping it off, I am back on the weight loss tread mill.

I have gone back to Weight Watchers but this time I am using their weekly phone coaching service. I chose this methodology because I couldn't be bothered to go to the weekly classes - not a good sign!?  And WW were having a sale, so it wasn't too expensive when I signed up.

I have been at it for a month and enjoying this service. I get a 10 minute call every week and also have access to the online tracking system which can also be accessed via my phone.

To be honest, I don't find the content of the coaching that helpful. You can't really achieve much dialogue in 10 minutes. But I am finding it motivating having to account to someone every week. And the mobile app is great for keeping track of what I eat and do.

The plan that I have signed up for lasts for 3 months. I am not sure what I'll do when it runs out.

But in the meantime, I think it will be really useful to keep me on the straight and narrow over Christmas.

 What motivation do you use for keeping fit and healthy?

Photo - Billy Brown: https://www.flickr.com/photos/billybrown00/4982722491

"Suffragette" - Has the battle really been won?

I went to the see the film "Suffragette" the other day with my daughter.

The story is about Maud, who is a working class woman who becomes embroiled in the fight for women's right to vote in the early 1900s in the UK.

On the whole, I thought the film was overly long and a surface once-over look at this time in history. But having said that, it was good to see the story from the working class point of view, for a change.

The value for me of the film is that it reminds us of the fight for suffrage, both historical and today. For example, my daughter didn't know about Emily Davison and how she lost her life for the cause at the 1913 Darby.



But at the same time, it made me sad because I wander how much women have gained. We still do not have parity in wages. Women in Australia are being killed by their partners at an alarming rate. In some parts of the world, women do not have the right to vote, and in other parts of the world they are sexual and economic slaves.

I wonder what Emily Davis would say about women in today's world. Would she think her sacrifice was worth it?