Hi Actimel01,

I considered training to be a nurse after my BSc as I loved patient contact and I actually know a lot of people who went down that path. Just one thing to think about. I do my PhD in a Medical School (although I'm not a medic) and we have a number of registered PhD students who are Nurses. If you were to finish the PhD then do training you would be in a position to be promoted fairly quickly to a Research Nurse I would imagine. Having said that, 3 years is a long time to do something if you're really not enjoying it.

Have you thought about adapting your PhD to make it more about patient contact? I'm not sure what area you are in but how about delivering an intervention with patients? Including qualitative interviews and focus groups with patients?

Lastly, talk to as many people as possible about it! Talk to the nurses, talk to pre-registration/student nurses, newly qualified nurses, nurses who have been there 20/30 years. Talk to staff nurses, nurse practitioners, research nurses etc. Information is knowledge right? Also, make sure you talk to everyone who matters to you about it.

Good luck!

A

yep, i know that feeling!

i'd talk to somebody in your legal department because i think you'll need an outside agency to sign some form of confidentiality agreement. or, you could think about taking on an RA on a short term contract and making them sign your departments confidentialiy agreement. looks good on their CV, you get your confidentiality. i think you're right to be wary about this!

If you are going to get them transcribed, doesn't your department have a transcription service?

The best way to spend three years.

Hard but immensely satisfying.

Hi!

A/AS level are the exams we take at 18 in England and Wales. We finish mandatory education at 16 (these exams are GCSEs). Not sure what this equates to in Italy.

Could luck with the Clinical!

A

Rockstar - try not to panic.

I applied for a named project but even now, in my second year, I'm just refining the research questions again! And no doubt before I hand in I will refine them again as it's an iterative project.

A

Ah Koturu.

You sound like an expert!!! You'll be absolutely fine. I just wanted to press the issue because I've had lecturers stress the importance of the language you use in qualitative. But you sound like you know all the historical perspectives back to front!

I just like to giggle at all the fallings out between some very heavy weight academics.

A

Just be very very careful. Traditionally grounded theory proposed that theories should be born entirely out of data and as such no literature review should be performed. I assume that is not your plan and that you will be reading some literature before you start. The iterative process in grounded theory is called the "constant comparative method" and this is where your constantly seek to recruit more participants in order to reach data saturation and compare themes throughout all transcripts. Many journals incorrectly say they have used grounded theory when in fact they have use a constant comparative method. Just be wary of what you call it because if you have a grounded theorist on your viva panel they may pick you up on it.



I can't really get my head around narrative but it is al to do with how the experience fits in to the individuals life and how they tell stories and folk stories etc to understand it all. think that's right anyway.

Definitely write as you go!  Even if you don't use what you write it has you maintaining and developing your academic writing skills.

I love the following:

Cresswell, J. W. (1998). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five traditions. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Goes through what they are, how to decide which method is most appropriate and how to do it.

I do access to service research and I use phenomenology, specifically IPA but the choice basically comes down to what kind of question you want to ask. I'm interested in the experience of accessing care so IPA was really the only option for me. When developing questionnaires I used thematic analysis. If I was interested in understanding the meaning of living with a chronic illness I'd use narrative.

Good luck!

Oo, also, I'm thinking of clinical too. I'm just wondering, my PhD is in a health psychology area, not clinical. What's yours (without too many identifying details!!!)? And have you got clinical experience? I wish they advertised 1 day a week assistant posts!!!

A

I'm a little younger than you but same basic situation.

The other day, I got a key to my desk which I'd been waiting for for ages. In the drawer was about 20 application forms for graduate programmes from 2005 that the previous occupant of the desk must of left here. I felt a little sick about the wages, training opportunities and development that was available through these schemes. I NEVER looked at this kind of thing back in the day (selling my soul to be an accountant was how I looked at it) but the idea that 3 years ago I could've applied for positions with clear progression and up to £53,000 within 3 years really made me think about the PhD.

There is nothing I would rather do with my time but is this (academic research) what I want to do forever? No. So then I think, move on!

I'm lucky in that all my friends are in a similar situation, i.e., still training for whatever profession they've chosen but now some of them are looking at buying houses and I feel I'm definitely holding my boyfriend back...

I think you have to just keep moving forward. Everything is evolving right?

A

I'm on £12940 tax free, NI free. It's just gone up by a couple of hundred pounds. My boyfriend used to be on £16,000 for a real world job (he's moved now) and we used to take home the same amount.

I have no problems with the amount in terms of paying rent, bills, car stuff etc but, lets face it, you won't be living a champagne lifestyle.

A

======= Date Modified 15 Oct 2008 10:15:00 =======
H, Bonzo, Tricky,



Thank you all so much!  Wow, you are those really scary clever kind of people...scary...but amazing!



Sorry for going off the radar yesterday. I have so much work to do and I'd love to say that I was working my way productively through it but in reality I was paralysed with fear and spent my day in my PJs under a blanked watching ER.  I'm one walking PhD cliche.



In the end I used Trickys idea because it was first and it worked for what I needed (I know, commitment isn't my strong point). Also because the words code, VBA, programming and Linux scare me.  When someone wrote C++ I nearly fainted. Flash back to hours trying to understand my ex-boyfriends love for the language!



H - I don't use Linux but my boyfriend is forever hassling me to.  He has a duel boot up system. It's silly really because I REALLY like the philosophy behind open source software and actually, my PhD is kind of related to this kind of thing.  I'm capable with computers but by no means competent. Boo!



Smilodon - Sorry you did it the long way.  At least now you know for next time, right?



Thank you all again.



A

Fantastic!

Thank you both so much. My head is very fuzzy now. It's been a long day and the first one since my holiday so I will give it my full attention first thing tomorrow.

Thanks thanks thanks!!!!

A