Undergraduate and postgraduate study opportunities for those leaving the Forces

Whatever point you have reached on your chosen career path, St George’s taught courses and research degrees are designed to help you move forward

St George’s, University of London takes great pride in its distinctiveness as a health sciences university. As it is co-located with St George’s Hospital in south-west London, students can walk the corridors from clinical teaching room to laboratory to hospital ward or clinic. As well as sharing our campus with St George’s Hospital, our close neighbours are the South West London and St George’s Mental Health Trusts. Together, these NHS trusts form the hub of an extensive network of acute hospital trusts, primary care trusts and social services that is referred to as the South West London Academic Health Sciences Network. This rich blend of supportive learning environments and local clinical experience sets St George’s, University of London still further apart.

St George’s offers a combination of undergraduate and postgraduate courses. If you’re looking to get the experience you need to kick-start your career in healthcare then look no further than our programmes in biomedical science and medicine; and through our partnership with Kingston University, courses in midwifery, nursing, paramedic science, physiotherapy, radiography and social work.

If you are aiming for a research career, all our MRes programmes provide opportunities to work alongside established research teams and internationally recognised experts in areas such as infectious diseases, cardiovascular science, neuroscience and genetics. In addition, we offer postgraduate certificate, diploma and MSc courses designed to support your clinical work and develop your research skills.

Come along to one of our open days to find out more:

we offer a monthly open day for our undergraduate courses, see www.sgul.ac.uk/opendays/
our next postgraduate open evening is on Tuesday 28 June 2011, 5–7.30pm, see www.sgul.ac.uk/postgraduate.

For more details about our courses and what it’s like to study here, please visit www.sgul.ac.uk, contact the Student Recruitment Team on +44 (0)20 8725 2333 or email enquiries@sgul.ac.uk.

See the advertisement on page 56

Train as a hypnotherapist with Chrysalis

There are many situations in life where we as humans beings become stressed and anxious, which could lead to us not being able to achieve our goals. However, more and more people are turning towards hypnotherapy to reduce these feelings of stress and anxiety.

Recently Nikki Durrant set a new trend among nervous drivers, using hypnotherapy to cure the anxiety she suffered whenever she got behind the wheel. Nikki would burst into tears within moments of getting behind the wheel, ultimately failing her test. This happened four times before Nikki took action and looked for a local hypnotherapist. She then received two hours of hypnotherapy and the results were fantastic: she passed her driving test with flying colours. Hypnotherapy had solved Nikki’s anxiety problems!

Hypnotherapy could be used in many situations. A lot of people feel anxious when going to an interview, giving a presentation to a room full of people or even saying their wedding vows. Every day we hear more and more stories of people using hypnotherapy to make a positive change in their lives.

You could use your own life experience and train to be a hypnotherapist, and start to help people who are in need. Chrysalis is the UK’s largest therapy trainer and registered ELCAS training provider and will be able to help you to start your journey to a new career today.

For further information, visit www.chrysaliscourses.co.uk, email enquiries@chrysalis.uk.net or call 0844 411 9365.

See the advertisement on page 54 www.questonline.co.uk/may11

Thinking of a career in counselling?

So often we hear of the latest sports personalities going ‘off the rails’, turning to drugs, alcohol or even promiscuity. One of the most recent cases of a sports personality doing just that was Ricky Hatton: pictures appeared in the press of him taking drugs and drinking excessive amounts. Hatton’s publicist, Max Clifford, explained that Ricky had been suffering from depression for some time, and that the drink and drug problem was a knock-on effect. Following the revelations, Ricky is thought to have met with counselling specialists to discuss his problems and to draw up a treatment plan. But could this whole episode have been prevented?

Many believe that counselling should be made readily available to people who receive a lot of media attention. This could apply to a sports personality or an actor/actress – particularly when they retire and step out of the limelight, to help with the adjustment to ‘normal life’.

Counselling should, however, be used throughout many professions where the professional retires and cannot find a substitute for the natural high they received from their career: a soldier leaving the Army, a surgeon who saves lives, or anyone who enjoys their work and will miss the sense of job satisfaction they received on a daily basis.

Chrysalis is the UK’s largest therapy trainer and ELCAS-registered training provider. People come to Chrysalis from all walks of life, to retrain not only to help save others from the above-mentioned scenarios, but also to pursue a rewarding career in counselling.

To find out more, call 0844 411 9365, email enquiries@chrysalis.uk.net or visit www.chrysaliscourses.co.uk.

Published November 2010

Prepare to care

Many people from all walks of life have had experience of care without realising it. Caring for a relative, friend or comrade can be particularly rewarding and makes it considerably easier to forge a new career in the healthcare industry.

Jark Healthcare, a specialist, national and privately owned recruitment business, has the ability to provide retraining to exArmed Forces personnel, and runs a dedicated and fully functioning training department that is geared towards training and retraining applicants with a view to working on a full/ parttime, temporary/permanent basis. With offices across the country, we are confident that we have the ability to not only retrain you, but also to provide you with consistent work moving forwards.

For more information call 01223 227999 or visit www.jark.co.uk.

Published March 2010

Help us to understand Britain

Here’s an interesting and unusual line of work that may be new to you. Last year, interviewers and nurses working for the National Centre for Social Research visited over 300,000 homes in the UK. The interviewers completed survey questionnaires with people in their own homes, and on our health surveys the nurses followed up with medical measures (including taking blood samples and blood pressure).

For 40 years we have been carrying out major public surveys for government departments and charities. The results are used for all sorts of different purposes, such as evaluating policy and monitoring people’s opinions, health, education and finances.

Our interviewers enjoy the challenge and satisfaction of using their people skills to persuade members of the public to take part.

Our nurses say that one reason they like the work is because they are not only dealing with people who are unwell! It’s worthwhile work because you are gathering information that is vital to understanding modern Britain, and the surveys give people a chance to be represented and have their voices heard. It’s a role for people who enjoy being out and about on the road, meeting a wide range of individuals and families. No two days are the same.

We provide all the training you’ll need on the various survey questionnaires and measurements. There are no fixed hours but there is evening and weekend work, since this is when the public are often at home. Interviewers and nurses work for us on a freelance basis, so you can accept and turn down assignments of work during the year. In 2010 we will have assignments in cities, towns and villages throughout England, Scotland and Wales. If you like the sound of this, why not give us a call?

For more information, contact Tel: 01277 690038, email: fieldrecruitment@natcen.ac.uk, or visit website at www.natcen.ac.uk

See Natcen advertisement on page 56

Nursing … by degrees

Health Minister Ann Keen (herself a former nurse) has announced that all nurses will need to be educated to degree level by 2013. The move aims to improve both patient care and perceptions of nurses’ professional role. However, there are fears that it may deter people from pursuing a nursing career, put off by the idea of an extended – and expensive – period of study.

Nursing candidates will require a degree in nursing, or equivalent international qualification, and the courses (lasting up to four years) will meet standards developed by professional regulator, the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC). Currently, the minimum requirement for entry into the profession is a diploma: a two- or three-year nursing course.

Keen told The Times, ‘By bringing in degree-level registration we can ensure new nurses have the best possible start to meet the challenges of tomorrow. This is the right direction of travel if we are to fulfil our ambition to provide higher-quality care for all.’ A formal three-month consultation period will begin in January, and universities are expected to begin offering nursing degree courses from as early as September 2011.

Nursing & Allied Professions - Despatches