Careers
Back on dry land Steven Beach’s job as an advanced nurse practitioner on the night shift at St George’s Healthcare NHS Trust, London, is the latest in a long line of roles he has held since 2000, when he qualified as a nurse. Here, Stephanie Jones-Berry outlines his varied career so far, including a period working as a nurse on a cruise ship in the Caribbean SOUTH AMERICA, Alaska, Hawaii, the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, Australia and the South Pacific: some people can only dream of visiting these places but, for one nurse, exploring exotic locations has been all in a day’s work. ‘I wanted to travel the world, but could not afford it,’ says Steven Beach. ‘So I applied to be a nurse on a cruise ship and was soon sailing off around the Caribbean.’ At the time of his application, Mr Beach was a medical care practitioner at St Helier Hospital, London, where he gained advanced assessment skills. Before that he worked, as a recently qualified nurse, at Conquest Hospital, Hastings, the East Sussex town in which he grew up. His experiences of sea travel consisted of a single ferry crossing to France. Work on the cruise ship was demanding. It had 3,000 passengers and 1,200 crew members, and a team of two doctors and four nurses held two passenger and crew clinics each day. The team worked four months at a time without a day off and dealt with a range of conditions, from minor illness right the way up to cardiac arrest. ‘It was a steep learning curve,’ says Mr Beach. ‘It involved evacuating people
on stretchers out of cabins, helping people who had fallen and broken their hips.’ On a few, rare occasions, passengers died and family holidays were ended in the starkest, saddest way. Mr Beach recalls: ‘We did our best to support those families.’ Support for the healthcare team on board the ships came from the other nurses, however. ‘We had to support each other because it is hard being away from home. Most of the time we got on well.’ Career progression After five years at sea, during which he qualified with the Resuscitation Council UK as an advanced life support instructor, Mr Beach decided it was time to return to dry land. ‘I knew that getting back into the NHS would be harder the longer I left it,’ he explains. ‘I had become a senior nurse on the cruise ships and I knew my career there could not progress any further, so in July 2010 I left.’ Mr Beach returned to Conquest Hospital and took a job as a staff nurse in the emergency department. ‘I went back into the NHS in a lower position than I came out,’ he says. ‘I had transferable skills, but I knew I needed to learn more.’
‘I wanted to be a nurse since I was about 13. My mother was a nurse, as were others in our family. Looking back, I would not change anything’ EMERGENCY NURSE
One year later, after Mr Beach had consolidated his emergency care skills, he applied and was accepted for a job as a specialist nurse for resuscitation at St George’s Hospital, London. His trust soon discovered that, years earlier, he had been seconded to teach nursing students, and it persuaded him into becoming a practice educator for emergency care, ‘teaching junior staff assessments and helping them get onto courses’. Mr Beach also taught at Kingston University until, in August last year, he decided to apply for his current position as advanced nurse practitioner working nights on general wards. ‘I am enjoying it,’ he says. ‘It is a return to physical assessments and history taking, but involves staff support because matrons and ward sisters do not work at nights. I am a senior nursing presence at night, when people become unwell on wards.’ From his formative training as a teenager with the St John Ambulance, Mr Beach has travelled a long way, and his willingness to take on new challenges and work flexibly has stood him in good stead. ‘I wanted to be a nurse since I was about 13,’ adds Mr Beach. ‘My mother was a nurse, as were a few others in our family. Looking back, I would not change anything or have missed any of those opportunities. ‘I have done a lot of varied things, which have given me a lot of different experiences and helped my career grow.’ Stephanie Jones-Berry is a freelance journalist May 2014 | Volume 22 | Number 2 39
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Back on dry land Steven Beach’s job as an advanced nurse practitioner on the night shift at St George’s Healthcare NHS Trust, London, is the latest in a long line of roles he has held since 2000, when he qualified as a nurse. Here, Stephanie Jones-Berry outlines his varied career so far, including a period working as a nurse on a cruise ship in the Caribbean SOUTH AMERICA, Alaska, Hawaii, the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, Australia and the South Pacific: some people can only dream of visiting these places but, for one nurse, exploring exotic locations has been all in a day’s work. ‘I wanted to travel the world, but could not afford it,’ says Steven Beach. ‘So I applied to be a nurse on a cruise ship and was soon sailing off around the Caribbean.’ At the time of his application, Mr Beach was a medical care practitioner at St Helier Hospital, London, where he gained advanced assessment skills. Before that he worked, as a recently qualified nurse, at Conquest Hospital, Hastings, the East Sussex town in which he grew up. His experiences of sea travel consisted of a single ferry crossing to France. Work on the cruise ship was demanding. It had 3,000 passengers and 1,200 crew members, and a team of two doctors and four nurses held two passenger and crew clinics each day. The team worked four months at a time without a day off and dealt with a range of conditions, from minor illness right the way up to cardiac arrest. ‘It was a steep learning curve,’ says Mr Beach. ‘It involved evacuating people
on stretchers out of cabins, helping people who had fallen and broken their hips.’ On a few, rare occasions, passengers died and family holidays were ended in the starkest, saddest way. Mr Beach recalls: ‘We did our best to support those families.’ Support for the healthcare team on board the ships came from the other nurses, however. ‘We had to support each other because it is hard being away from home. Most of the time we got on well.’ Career progression After five years at sea, during which he qualified with the Resuscitation Council UK as an advanced life support instructor, Mr Beach decided it was time to return to dry land. ‘I knew that getting back into the NHS would be harder the longer I left it,’ he explains. ‘I had become a senior nurse on the cruise ships and I knew my career there could not progress any further, so in July 2010 I left.’ Mr Beach returned to Conquest Hospital and took a job as a staff nurse in the emergency department. ‘I went back into the NHS in a lower position than I came out,’ he says. ‘I had transferable skills, but I knew I needed to learn more.’
‘I wanted to be a nurse since I was about 13. My mother was a nurse, as were others in our family. Looking back, I would not change anything’ EMERGENCY NURSE
One year later, after Mr Beach had consolidated his emergency care skills, he applied and was accepted for a job as a specialist nurse for resuscitation at St George’s Hospital, London. His trust soon discovered that, years earlier, he had been seconded to teach nursing students, and it persuaded him into becoming a practice educator for emergency care, ‘teaching junior staff assessments and helping them get onto courses’. Mr Beach also taught at Kingston University until, in August last year, he decided to apply for his current position as advanced nurse practitioner working nights on general wards. ‘I am enjoying it,’ he says. ‘It is a return to physical assessments and history taking, but involves staff support because matrons and ward sisters do not work at nights. I am a senior nursing presence at night, when people become unwell on wards.’ From his formative training as a teenager with the St John Ambulance, Mr Beach has travelled a long way, and his willingness to take on new challenges and work flexibly has stood him in good stead. ‘I wanted to be a nurse since I was about 13,’ adds Mr Beach. ‘My mother was a nurse, as were a few others in our family. Looking back, I would not change anything or have missed any of those opportunities. ‘I have done a lot of varied things, which have given me a lot of different experiences and helped my career grow.’ Stephanie Jones-Berry is a freelance journalist May 2014 | Volume 22 | Number 2 39
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