Applying for New Jobs

I've been quietly applying for a couple of jobs this year and sadly, neither of them have quite worked out, but I still wanted to talk about them here and share a little more about why I was interested in them. 

I actually applied for both of these before my flexible working request got approved and I was really struggling and ultimately stressing about my work-life balance and the time taken to get to and from work. Both of the jobs gave me the flexibility I was desiring, with the option to self-roster as part of a small team, which I thought would be ideal. 

One was to be a Homebirth Midwife. I absolutely loved my job as a Community Midwife during my Preceptorship, however I always felt very stretched and taken advantage of as a Newly Qualified Midwife. When this job came up, I was really struggling in the hospital, because every shift I would be moved and my passion is and always will be labour care, but there was sometimes up to a month where that didn't happen. I was excited to be able to provide patient-centred care, continuity of carer and low risk labour care at home. Home births will forever hold a special place in my heart. I ended up getting offered an interview on a day where I was in between 2 night shifts. I emailed, rang, messaged all the contacts available on the job application and couldn't get through so I ended up sadly having to withdraw from the application process. 

The other was for a new role called Patient Family Liaison Officer. This is a new role created under the Patient Experience Matron to support service users who have either had difficult or traumatic experiences within Maternity, or require more complex multidisciplinary team care plans to be made. I still love and want to be clinical, so it wouldn't be a job I wanted to do full time but would be happy to do 1 or 2 days a week, which this role was for and I thought it would be perfect. Having already supported these service users through the Birth Reflections service and really enjoying it, I was excited to have more time available to do such a rewarding role. Unfortunately, I wasn't successful in the application process which was a big shame and somewhat disappointing. Its also the first thing I've ever not been successful at applying for so it's defintely a learning curve. I've asked for some feedback but not yet heard back, so we will see what they say. I felt I was a good fit for the role, with my experience and hitting the criteria, so it must have been my personal statement unfortunately. 

Anyway, right now, I'm quite happy in my current role so I don't mind too much. I love when I can do the job that I'm down to do, especially when that is Labour Suite, and recently, I've not been getting moved which is always better! I want to stay clinical for as long as I can but I know I need to be looking at options for the future, because sadly as a single mother I'm not going to be able to do long shifts or night shifts. It's something I'm going to have to be considering going forward, but it's over a year away until I need to even start thinking about that so, until then, I hope I continue to enjoy and love my work.