"I didn't realise how easy it would be to top up to a degree"

2 September 2010

Prior to becoming one of our Clinical Leads three and half years ago, Chris jointly led a COPD service in primary care. It was during her time in this role that she completed both the Asthma and COPD diploma level modules with Education for Health and then enrolled on the degree programme.

“Even though I had many years of experience working in the respiratory field, I was beginning to feel under qualified as the new nurses I was working with had higher qualifications than me. It was this and the fact that I realised that the service I was running needed an evidence based approach in order to be seen as credible, that prompted me to do a degree. When I applied for my degree I was delighted to learn that I was able to use my nursing qualification as my Level 1 one points, and the previous diploma modules I had already studied as my diploma level points. I didn’t realise how easy it would be to top up to a degree!”

(If you are a nurse who has qualified with a Dip HE in Nursing, this will count for all your required diploma level credits and so it will only leave you 120 credits to study at degree level).

Chris is a brilliant example of how easy it is to ‘step up to a degree’. Like many of our graduates she completed the modules over a period of several years. It was this flexibility that Chris really valued:

“When my husband was ill I was treated with empathy, and extensions were granted to support me. The great thing about Education for Health’s pathways is that they are so flexible. There are many modules to choose from over several different topics and they all teach skills which are transferable to the clinical setting. You can even adapt which pathway you take during the course of your studies, to reflect changes in your clinical role. I stayed focused on respiratory, but one of my later modules was ‘Managing Long Term Conditions’, as at the time there was politically a move to a more holistic approach to care regardless of the patient’s condition. The launch of this module was very timely and indeed recent developments at Education for Health have meant that there is now a whole Long Term Conditions pathway”.

Read the full article here.

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