What has been your clinical/medical experience to date?
I qualified as a Children’s Nurse in 2004 and have worked at The Evelina Children’s Hospital, Great Ormond Street Hospital and for the last 9 years at my local hospital King’s College. I have had a variety of roles including Ward Manager, Clinical Nurse Specialist in Oncology, and Junior Sister. However my main love is face to face Nursing and being at the bedside. It’s for this reason that I started training to be an Advanced Clinical Practitioner and remain clinical rather than take the managerial pathway.
What motivated you to enter paediatric medical care in the first place?
When children get better you know about it. They don’t lie in bed moping, they want to be in that playroom. I spent 4 weeks on an adult ward when I trained and that was enough for me to realise I’d picked the right branch of nursing!
How will the funding from The Evie Dove Foundation help you to advance your career and your impact/services to children?
It will take away the stress of the financial side of the training and will help me obtain the qualification, and skills needed for the job.
How did you find out about The Evie Dove Foundation?
There are posters promoting the foundation all around child health areas at King’s and it was mentioned to be by my Head of Nursing as an option for funding.
Tell us about yourself!
I live a 20 minute walk from King’s (the dream) with my husband and 2 children, Chester the cat, Finn the fish, and Comet the leopard gheko. I love going to the gym and running silly distances having run from London to Brighton last year. I hate doing the food shopping and unloading the dishwasher but financial incentives (bribing) for the children has helped the latter.
Anything else you would like to tell us about your experience, future aspirations and motivations?
I can’t wait to finish my studies and just concentrate on work. I have enjoyed going back to university despite vowing I never would, but it will be a relief to pack away the laptop and text books one last time.