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My name's Ruth and I'm currently studying the Masters in Clinical Research. I'm in the
second year now and I'm doing it on a part-time basis. When I'm not studying here I'm working
as a research nurse and I'm based at the children's hospital in Manchester. Juggling my home life
and my university work and my job can be quite difficult at times and that's the big challenge
of being a part-time MRes student, you do have to be quite organised. The support from
the course is very good but you do have to ask for that support and seek it out and you
do have to keep that line of communication with the staff at the university. I chose
to do this course because I saw it as a great opportunity to further my career as a nurse
and help me with my clinical practice. It's a really good stepping stone as a nurse to
forward to your career onto other areas and research is always relevant to any area of
nursing, regardless of your background. My particular background is community nursing
but it helps in all areas of clinical practice because you can apply your research to the
area of work that you're in. I chose Manchester and I chose this course because its an opportunity
to do online learning so there's very little commitment of having to come into the university
on specific days. This really suited my work life and my home life with my familty. I can
do the course, I can work throught the contents of the course at my own pace and in my own
time. The combination of doing short periods of time in the university, where you get to
meet the other participants in the course, and you get to meet all of the tutors face-to-face,
having that opportunity at the start of the course and then at certain time points during
the course is really helpful because not only do you put faces to names and build those
relationships, it enables you to be able to feel comfortable to contact the tutors to
have that dialogue online when you've already met those individuals. It's a massive amount
of work required for this course and it is a big commitment and actually some students
think working online they can do a little bit in the evenings or a little bit at the
weekend and continue with their other work commmitments and family commitments, but the
days of the course are designated for very good reasons because it really does require
a huge amount of time and effort and you really have to put the work in. The MRes is a really
valuable qualification as a healthcare practitioner. It can open the opportunities for further
study if you were wanting to do a PhD or to go into a career of academia from a clinical
career, but its also really helpful and useful for your clinical practice learning the sort
of methodologies that we learn on the course is always really helpful and useful to apply
in any area of nursing and healthcare. If you were considering doing the course think
abou the area of your practice, think about some area of interest to you that you would
like to seek answers for, because it's about what your practice is and its about applying
those skills that you will learn on the MRes into your clinical practice. And think about
where you've come from and where you would like to go to in your career because it's that
point you want to get to.