I have intermittently posted on my blog over the past 8 years. Last night, I was reviewing my post for the past year years and I was surprised by how much my life has changed.

I started this blog when I moved to Australia because nursing culture shock was more intense than regular culture shock.

A bit of background about me. I’m an American and grew up in Pennsylvania. I spent most of my life in Pennsylvania. Graduated from Penn State in 1997. WE ARE… (if you know, you know)

My nursing career started in Labor and Delivery nursing. I worked at a community hospital and a large intercity hospital. I can’t believe at one point in my life I actually wanted to be a midwife, but I burnt out after working in a large Baltimore L&D unit.

I did a stint in College Health Nursing while living in a different state for a year. When I returned to Pennsylvania, I worked in a very busy, very intense cardiac unit. My time in this unit changed my life and the direction I wanted to take my career. It was the first time I was regularly a charge nurse and my first role as an assistant Nurse Manager. I found the role was absolutely a wonderful fit for me. In this role, I blossomed as a nurse. I learned so many new skills which stay with me today.

After spending several years in this role, I moved to a large university possible into a Neurosurgical Trauma Critical Care Unit. Finally, I found my niche! I absolutely loved Neuro nursing. Again, I ended up in an assistant management role. At this point, I decided to get a dual Masters in Nursing and Healthcare administration. Part of my role was to assist with implementation of our new Electronic Medical Record. I never realised how important this project would be to my future career path.

After years at this hospital, I decided I was ready for something completely new. Travel Nursing!

Two weeks after I resigned from the hospital, I was on my way to Las Vegas for my first travel contract. What an experience! I enjoyed my time in Vegas. It opened my eyes to so many issues in healthcare in the US.

After my contract, I moved on to Florida for several contracts. While in Florida, I met my husband who happens to be Australian. We met on Twitter and spoke for several months before meeting IRL in Miami. At this time, I became interested in international Nursing from many reasons, but mostly to spend time with my new boyfriend. He was interested in working in the UK and so was I. I started research and found the UK was revamping their process for overseas nursing registration so they would not be accepting any applications for a minimum of a year. My boyfriend suggested I apply for registration in Australia instead.

I said Yes and without any regrets I started the process of registering for nursing in Australia. The process wasn’t too difficult. I needed to provide evidence of my education being in English and details from my university. My application was sent to Australia in August and in October, I actually went to Australia on a visitor visa to drop off my documents. Finally, in March, I was registered as a nurse in Australia!

I applied for jobs and within 3 days had a job offer at a private hospital in Sydney and my work visa process was started. In June, 2012, I started in the ICU at the private hospital.

My husband and I got married in 2014 and spent our honeymoon in Europe. While overseas, I felt in love with London. Upon return to work, I found out I was volunteered as a superuser for the hospitals new Electronic Patient Record implementation. This truly changed my life. I ended up working very closely with the implementation team and it was an amazing experience. After implementation of the EPR, my mother became very ill. My husband had been in the process of applying for jobs in the UK and had started the registration process for the UK, but it was very time consuming. The process was also extremely SLOW. Four days before we were meant to fly to Paris for our anniversary, my husband received a job offer from a company in The Netherlands. So we made a decision to go to The Netherlands because his visa would cover me as a dependant.

Whilst in The Netherlands, I applied for jobs, but found it difficult due to the language barrier so instead I started the registration process for Ireland. As my registration progressed, I contacted the company which has implemented the EPR at the Australian hospital. On the same day, I got a job offer in Ireland for a nursing role and a job offer in the UK with the Healthcare IT company. Immediately, I accepted the job in London and declined the offer in Ireland.

Now almost 7 years later, I’m working as an Application Specialist and a Clinical Safety advisor at the same company, but living in Edinburgh (I love it more than London!). I’m enjoying this new career and all the new challenges.