Eden

Previous School: Bodmin College

Course studied: Level 3 Health & Social Care Diploma

Extra Activites: National Citizen Service (NCS) and work experience shadowing healthcare professionals

Progression: Royal Navy Nurse - Birmingham City University

How did you find university and training to be a Royal Navy Nurse?

Since leaving Callywith in 2020 I went straight onto my basic training at HMS Raleigh in Torpoint which lasted for 10 weeks. This 10 week course consisted of learning how to use and shoot rifles; learning how to iron, layout and maintain of all of our military uniform. As well as marching, intense physical training and teamwork. Overall, the training was amazing and I learned a lot of skills and how to become a member of the Royal Navy.

Since joining 6 1/2 years ago, I have spent three years in Birmingham completing my nursing training through the Royal Navy at Birmingham City University. This involved having many different placements including cardiac intensive care neurosurgery and community placements. For nurses this course was really beneficial and I learned so much with the hands on care we were able to deliver to patients whilst training. I then moved on to being based at HMS Drake in Plymouth where I now work at Derriford Hospital. Part of becoming a registered nurse within the military means gaining a wide range of skills for deployment aspects. So when I joined Derriford, I spent six months working in a medical assessment unit then a further six months working in a surgical ward and I have now gone onto my specialised area of emergency medicine.

I currently work in the ED department and I’m hoping to progress on to specialise; through an extra year at university through again funded by the MOD. This that means I can deploy in the future as a specialised emergency nurse. I would absolutely recommend doing your nursing training through the Royal Navy to anyone who is interested, the variety of skills you acquire and the amount of experiences you gain are incomparable. Being able to use your nursing knowledge in a variety of settings including deployed on ships , land environments or in the NHS have found to be a really valuable skill and something you wouldn’t necessarily get having not joined the military.

How did your time at Callywith influence and support your choice of/transition to university?

Being at Callywith really helped shape my career. My lecturers brought a wide range of knowledge to the topics on my course and really helped enhance my own. They were very supportive with the application to the Royal Navy. I found my whole experience at Callywith really positive. I thought the atmosphere was great and the course really helped prepare me for my career.

How has your Health & Social Care Diploma helped you in your course?

My time at Callywith helped me so much with preparing for my future career as the course in particular covers a lot of things such as policies, procedures and roles and responsibilities of healthcare professionals that I needed for working in health care, as well as giving me the opportunity to complete 100 hours of work experience shadowing healthcare professionals such as nurses, which helped me know that this is exactly what I wanted to do! I felt a lot of encouragement and support at Callywith to go for every opportunity I could.

What advice would you give to students?

I would absolutely recommend doing your nursing training through the Royal Navy. The variety of skills you acquire and the amount of experiences you gain are incomparable. Being able to use your nursing knowledge in a variety of settings including deployed on ships, land environments or in the NHS have found to be a really valuable skill and something you wouldn’t necessarily get having not joined the military