My Name is Rachael, I am an Anaesthetic Technician / Operating Department Practitioner.
I came to NZ in June from the United Kingdom. The process to come to NZ took me 7 months as travelling at the same time.
The easiest part of the process was finding a job! The most challenging part of the process was collecting all relevant documents and information as we was travelling Australia and New Zealand and had limited wifi and access to documents within the UK.
My first impressions of NZ were: A beautiful country with amazing scenery and friendly people. The best parts of NZ are I love how friendly and helpful people are here and how child friendly everywhere is. Love the out door lifestyle, nothing is too far away and amazing scenery.
What I miss the most is family and friends.
My advice if you are planning to come to NZ is: have a look into what information is needed to apply for visas and if you need to convert your qualification to a nz equivalent. Consider the time it takes gather all information and for all documents to be processed.
Anything else you would like to say? If you are seriously considering making the move to NZ then I would recommend that you do it. It doesn't have to be forever but give it a go. make your dreams a reality like we did. Its an amazing country with a lot of great opportunities for all. I would also recommend ACCENT Health Recruitment. They were a fantastic help from start to finish and the whole process would have been a lot more difficult without them, thank you Kristin and her team.
Are there any major differences between your current role in NZ and your previous role in the UK?
Being an anaesthetic tech in NZ seems to be a lot more laid back than in the UK, your role may be restricted to just anaesthetics so if you wish to maintain skills within scrub and recovery this may be worth discussing with ACCENT.
Are there any similarities that have helped you orientate/transition easily?
Everything that we do within the uk is very similar within NZ so there are lots of similarities.
