The Road So Far...

Hi everyone.
It's been a while since I last posted.
I received some emails and questions from fellow nurses in the Philippines some time back, and I thought, well this may be the time to answer them.

First: I am now working, as you all know in a Hospital here in Baden-Württemberg. For ''Schweigepflicht'' or professional discretion's sake, I am not going to mention the exact name or place of the hospital.

It's now going to be my 5th month of working as a fulltime registered nurse here and my ''Probe Zeit'' or trial time for work will end on December.
What does that mean you say?

Well, everyone who starts working here in Germany usually undergo a trial period of approx. 6 months in their respective companies/institutions.
You get to be regularly paid in these months, so no worries, and chances are, you will be 99 % accepted if you haven't done something really horrible those past 6 months. kidding.
But that's true. Germany's health care system is in dire need of nursing personnel. . So as long as you are doing your job well, you'll have no problem.

I have signed my contract already, before I started working so I think the label of having a trial period is mainly just for legalities.

Next:
Yes, I was a fresh graduate and board passer as I came here in Germany, with almost zero working experience (excluding my duty hours during colege).

I never did any volunteer work in a philippine hospital seeing as I did not have much time anymore.
I would've did that mind you, because it would have really helped me a lot here.

I started out with nothing. My college university is a great school. But because there are way too many student nurses doing shifts together, I barely had real-useful practical experience. With theory there was not a problem, you just have to somehow translate everything in your mind to german. But aside form that, theoretical knowledge was okay.

Practical experiences on the other hand, was a catastrophy. BAck in school, I never had an opportunity to handle something intravenous except change Dextrose/IV Solution bottles.
MEaning, I never had any exp. pushing IV medications, changing IV lines, Changing central venous catheter lines, measuring central venous pressure,  changing multiple lumen tubes, etc...the list goes on, you get the idea.

I had to learn it all here. I am working in the neuro-surgical station. I started out really from the bottom of the food chain. I felt so down and inferior a lot of times. and I still do now, sometimes, but everyday, I get up, do my job, and strive to learn more.

So now, I know I haven't answered allquestions yet, but maybe for now it's okay.
In 5 mins, my family and I are going to see a musical entitled ''Rebecca''. I am really excited.

Yeah, life and work here is hard. on My next post, I will share about the usual stuff/procedures that we do on the station.


and Regarding Visa, I am afraid I will be of little help on this area. I am holding both German and Philippine Passports, so I did not need to get a Visa to go here.

But I am sure if you guys contact the Philippine or GErman embassy through their websites, someone will surely be there to assist you.


and another thing. I dont think it will be that hard. why?
Last week, 25 nurses from Spain had a tour of our hospital together with their translator.
The hospital is hiring them even if they don't know how to speak German yet. They will be studying german at first, and after that, it's already a secure job for them...


so till then, goodluck. :)