Can you tell me about your current role?

I’m working as a research nurse for UKHSA (previously Public Health England). We first started recruiting for the our current study in about April 2020, and we have around 45,000 participants. It’s a very exciting project, I don't go on field work in this job, but did in my previous post as a field research nurse for NATCEN. I've been working from home solely in this role.

What I’ve also brought to the table is being a tech geek. From my own business, I have skills in marketing, communication, and making sure internal processes really support what needs to be done. It’s turned out to be an interesting way of bringing all my combined skills together and saying, ‘what can I contribute?’

Note from Ellie: Nabila is currently picking up a few shifts a month as a midwife alongside everything else.

How did you go about getting your research job?

I happened to be out in my car and I had pulled over to check my messages on my laptop (there’s always something business-related that needs responding to). I was out on the field in my last job as a field research nurse, collecting Covid swabs.. And I saw the research job flash up and I filled out the application form in 10 minutes flat. While writing the application I tried to think about how I could serve the project, and I honed in on my relevant skills. I looked at the job specification and talked about skills from my business and my interest in digital processes. I told them that I like to make complicated processes simple. When you have a project like the current study, which is high stakes, if somebody says to you, ‘I'm going to try to make things as easy as possible for you’, they're going to bite your hand off!

When you’re writing an application or interviewing you need to use your emotional intelligence, think about the needs of the organisation. Think about how best you can achieve their goal.

When did you realise you had some interesting skills to bring from your own business?

When I was working at Kings College Hospital in London, we had student midwives from 3 different universities working across all our different sites. We were doing their monthly rosters on an Excel spreadsheet and it was an absolute nightmare. I started to think ‘there must be a better way of doing this’. So I created a system to help us match mentors with students. And then I created a really easy roster system so students could be a lot more autonomous in getting the shifts they wanted and that freed up a lot of admin time. Highly skilled Band 7 midwives shouldn’t be sitting in front of a spreadsheet their whole lives!

No one thought I could find something that would work but there are so many software applications out there. Sure enough, within a couple of days, and after a lot of geeking out and working through a Sunday night I found a really good application and got it to do all the things I wanted it to, and then I customised it to make it very useable.

Then it was a case of convincing my colleagues and students that the application is as easy as WhatsApp or Facebook, if you can send a message on your phone, you can use this app!

Amazing. Where on earth did you get all these skills?

When you run a business you get curious and industrious and you’re able to go off and find solutions. It’s about thinking, ‘this job takes me 5 days, but how can I turn that into 5 minutes?’ There are thousands of tools out there these days, midwives can solve anything.

What is your business?

Before I tell you, I’ll say whatever passion you have, follow it, because you never know how those skills are going to benefit midwifery. Whether I’m working on the study, working on my business, or working as a midwife, I’m Nabila, I’m the same person, and I’m building my skills. You need to keep thinking ‘oh my God I’d love to do that’ and then having the audacity to say ‘I can help’. 

My entrepreneurial side has built my ability to ask questions and to push back. I think we should be working out how to spend 90% of our time on shift practising midwifery, not organising rosters or filling out the same paperwork in three different places.

When I realised I wanted to run a business, I sat down and wrote out my skill set. The two big things that had happened in my life were a big messy divorce, and being a midwife. I realised I had already got lots of experience being a divorce coach, I’ve helped so many people by signposting, and I have my safeguarding experience from midwifery. Even though I’m not a lawyer I’m familiar with that world, and so I developed a business around that. People think running a digital business is some kind of magic trick, but it’s absolutely not. You look at your core skills, who you are as a human being, and work out how you love helping people. And then you work out how to charge for that and get the word out.

I don't see any difference between the jobs I do. For instance, divorce coaching is midwifery, it’s practically the same job, there might not be a baby but there are still individual needs, assessing those needs, compassion, kindness, problem-solving, empathy, all of those things. Whatever you decide to do, be entrepreneurial, be creative, and make a difference.

Note from Ellie: I also agree that midwifery overlaps with business skills. I wonder what would happen to our retention rate if midwives felt more able to create a business on the side? This would mean midwives could spend more time on areas they were very passionate about, and build skills to bring back to the profession. Not everyone wants to run a business but if you have an interest in developing an area of passion, consider what entrepreneurial path you could carve out for yourself.