Kieran McGurk

BSc (Hons) Mental Health Nursing, 2018

What personal qualities do you need to be a mental health nurse?

You have to be pretty dedicated, that’s the main thing. It’s a lot of hard work to do a nursing degree. Even after that you have to be committed and constantly looking to develop. Nursing is constantly changing so you have to be constantly learning.

It sounds like quite a challenging job

It can be, and there are a lot of difficult circumstances.

It can be very rewarding too though. We do have people move on who end up doing really well. They’ve been able to return home and we’ve seen a real change from when we first met them.

How did your degree help you get to where you are now?

I was really fortunate with the placements I had, they were all really good. Quite a lot of the modules at the university helped me develop useful skills - that was helpful too.

What were the placements like?

I was in a good mix of wards. I’ve been in forensics, I’ve been in old age and both acute and rehabilitation. I really managed to build up my skillset before I even got started.

Did anyone have a particular impact on you at Abertay?

The lecturers were very supportive. They helped with any difficulties we had.

Do you have any advice for our current students?

Constantly try to learn new things. There’s a big focus on research now and there’s always new research coming out. Keep up to date with new developments because you can challenge your own assumptions and learn more, legitimately improving what you’re doing. There’s no point being set in your ways. You need to be flexible and continually developing.