A new start after 60: beginning again in nursing

Nick Dowling was the only person in a GP waiting room when a practice nurse, expecting a student, glanced around and asked the receptionist. At 60, he has taken an apprenticeship and hopes to qualify as a registered nursing associate this autumn. After decades in engineering and manufacturing, his placements have ranged from general practice and psychiatric units to ward nursing and urgent treatment centres; sometimes shifts run 12 hours and, at £14 an hour, pay less than he earned in earlier years.

He grew up in Dundalk and graduated in quality engineering in the mid-1980s. At 21 he went to Cape Cod and worked as a nurse’s aide on a “total care” dementia ward. The shock of that first shift made him vow not to return, but a senior nurse’s example persuaded him to stay for six months.

He later settled in England and moved into quality management and then consultancy, delivering leadership and change-management training alongside a psychologist colleague.

England, Dundalk

nursing, nursing associate, apprenticeship, career change, older workers, nurse aide, dementia ward, psychiatric units, general practice, dundalk