My Learning Journey

From nursing to a Doctorate in Higher and Adult Education and Beyond

I am a nurse.  This was the opening sentence for my first academic submission as part of my doctorate in adult and higher education.  It’s funny, looking back at some of that first writing, how whilst much has remained the same, so much more has changed for me personally and professionally. I still strongly identify with being a nurse…indeed so much of who I was as a clinically based nurse has informed my practice as an educator. Undertaking doctoral level studies gave me the space to expose that and reveal it to myself as well as highlighting the synergy between my nursing and education roles.  

As a postgraduate nurse educator I have the privilege of being part of a nurse and midwives continuing education journey. In fact, it is my student population who drove me specifically towards the doctorate in higher and adult education at Maynooth University in recognition that whilst I was a higher education educator, my students were part time learners whilst working fulltime and exhibiting many of the characteristics of adult learners. 

Nursing and midwifery are evolving professions with many practitioners taking on new expanded and advanced practice roles. In order for them to maximise their own and collective potential, continuing education is necessary. I am passionate about supporting nurses and midwives to do this and have been fortunate to be involved since 2006 in the rolling out of nurse and midwife prescribing in Ireland both through my educator role and as a member of the national steering group in the early years. At the time of undertaking my doctorate whilst there was much written about the benefits of nurse and midwife prescribing little was known about the individual experience of nurse and midwife prescribers and what it meant for their identity as a nurse or midwife. Undertaking the research was significant for me in terms of my own Continuous Professional Development during which I embodied my commitment to lifelong learning, essential to the practice of both nursing and education. 

One of the most challenging parts of the doctorate was the language around and understanding of epistemology and ontology. The intense head wrecking frustrations whilst trying to ‘position’ myself were new to me as someone who normally felt quite ‘in control’. Little did I know at the beginning that they were to become my constant companions! Naively though, I thought once I navigated the language, I’d be home and dry. My ‘positioning’ was challenged both externally but perhaps more significantly, internally. I had been professionally ‘brought up’ on absolute truths from the biomedical science sphere and to say my world was rocked is an understatement! I embraced a process of reflexivity and engagement with others which was strongly advocated within the Department of Adult and Community Education at Maynooth University. This resulted in an awakening, an emergence of greater curiosity and ultimately a personal positioning which draws from different ontological and epistemological perspectives.  

Undertaking the doctorate has had a profound experience on me as a nurse researcher and nurse educator. The challenges though were very much outweighed by the benefits. The friendships that emerged from shared experiences was not something I had given much thought to prior to the doctorate but realise now were always going to be key to my completion. An emergence of a previously deeply buried conviction that interaction builds and influences experience and that it is how we experience that brings meaning to us. This research has enabled me to reconnect with the values underpinning nursing practice and is in a way an exercise in me affirming my commitment to them and to nursing itself. The benefits of the research have also been significant. Findings have led to broad recommendations in the area of education and further research, practice and policy some of which are being implemented. However, it is the knowledge and insight which I have gained through the process of undertaking the doctorate that have resulted in significant change in me as an educator and my day to day educational practices, and which are ultimately benefitting students. It is this I am most proud of. 

Huge support and collaboration were required to facilitate my doctoral studies. Professionally, from RCSI colleagues, Maynooth University Department of Adult and Community Education; clinically, from the participants in the research who gave so generously of their time; and personally, my family who made significant sacrifices to enable me to complete and defend during a pandemic. To all of you, thank you from the bottom of my heart.