I’ve been trying every 5 minutes to try and post a new blog entry but unfortunately, the blogs are still down. So I’m writing one anyway to amuse myself

Yesterday, I went to the National Kidney and Transplant Institute (NKTI) with mbf to hopefully enrol into a Dialysis Nursing Training course but unfortunately, all the slots have already been filled and even if there were still some slots left, we can’t enrol because we’re lacking Intravenous therapy training and Basic Life Support traning. So now, we have to take the necessary trainings and wait for the next course (in September! for gadzooks!).

*Sigh* I felt soooo bummed about this for a number of reasons.

1. I felt bad about the time I had wasted waiting for this other hospital to contact me about my application. Like the optimistic little giggly nurse that I am, I expected to receive some good news about this, but unfortunately, that text/call bearing the good news… never came.

2. I felt bad about not being proactive (at all)! Argh. I’ve always been proud of myself for always taking the initiative to do things, but this time, I slacked off. Though I had wanted to attend seminars, I never got around to actually doing it. Thinking about this is making me sick, really.

3. I hate to say this, but I feel real bad about being a nurse in the Philippines. Getting into a good hospital isn’t as easy as people think. Many hospitals now “prefer” (it usually means, “require”) fresh graduates who have attended Intravenous Therapy training (IVT), Basic Life Support Training (BLS), and Advanced Cardiac Life Support training (ACLS). These trainings are quite expensive. Thus, one really needs to invest a lot of money in these to get into a good hospital. What about those who don’t have enough moolah to fund these trainings? Well, there’s still hope. Read on.

They now look at not only what you know but who you know in their institution. When I was called in to take the exam at this certain hospital (Initials contain the letters “C” “L” “M” and “S”) I asked the other examinees when had they submitted their requirements (because I waited a month and a half before I was called in for the exam), one of them, who comes from a school that has a very close affiliation with the said hospital, said she passed her requirements 3 days prior, and one of her professors is a member of the hospital’s training team. The other one, from a school in the province, passed his requirements a week prior to the date of examination through an uncle who was a nurse in that hospital. Weird, you say? This isn’t new here, unfortunately. Even if you don’t have stellar grades or the “preferred” trainings, as long as you know someone, you have a good chance of getting hired. Sometimes, affiliation (by any sort of relationship) trumps talent.

Meh. I’m not actually surprised that this happens because I, myself, have sought the help of certain family members to get one foot through the door. Now, (no. 4) I feel bad because I have been an enabler of this system. I’ve been passively riding that wave, enjoying its benefits, and have not thought for a second how truly unfair it is. Now that I’ve experienced being on the disadvantaged end, I really don’t have the right to complain. It’s just the way it is.

5. I feel bad because 4 years ago, when I decided to take up Nursing as a second course, I was dead certain about what my future would look like. It was bright (green! I’ll be very honest.), happy, worry-free, and smooth. Now, what with my nursing career here in the Philippines on indefinite hold, and with other countries slamming their doors one by one against foreign nurses’ noses, future seems a teeny tiny bit bleaker.

Bah. I think PMS just wrote a blog entry, hehe! *sigh* Feels good to let all these bad thoughts/feelings out!

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 6th, 2008 at 11:42 pm and is filed under Jibber Jabber. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.