From staff nurse to nurse consultant: Survival Guide part 5: Surviving holistically

This current series in the ‘staff nurse to nurse consultant’ column is focusing on surviving your nursing career. Does that seem too negative? It certainly would not make a suitable strap line for nurse recruitment: ‘Join our nursing team and we will help you survive your work.’ But the realities of working as a nurse in today's healthcare environments mean that survival techniques are not only useful, but essential. Many of the articles in this series have examined specific events and challenges that confront us during our working lives, but this month's focus is on you as a complete person: your holistic survival.

Spend a few moments thinking about yourself; that in itself is a challenge for many of us who spend most of our time serving the needs of others. Get a cup of coffee, shut the door, take a piece of scrap paper and a pen and write down your holistic needs and wants, focusing on the next year or two. Try to use a few key words rather than long sentences. Here are my thoughts: