What year did you graduate?
2014
What is your current role?
Currently, I work as a registered nurse within an Interventional Radiology department providing nursing care for patients undergoing invasive endovascular and non-vascular procedures under X-ray guidance. I am a band 6 Senior Staff Nurse and work as an anaesthetic, scrub and recovery practitioner.
How did you get into your current role?
After graduating from St George’s, I went to King’s College London to study my Postgraduate Diploma in Adult Nursing. It was a graduate entry, 2-year course that allowed me to registered with the Nursing and Midwifery Council as a Registered Nurse. The course is 50% theory and 50% practical. After qualifying I went to work in the operating theatre as a scrub nurse for thoracic, maxillofacial and ears, nose and throat surgery where I gained skills and knowledge of working in an operating department. From there I spent time working in the pre-operative unit and the recovery room. From the recovery room I moved to Interventional Radiology, which does minimally invasive operations/procedures under x-ray guidance. In this area I did my mentorship course (to teach student nurses) and a secondment back to theatre to complete my anaesthetic nursing qualification, allowing me to assist anaesthetists in giving anaesthetics.
Can you describe a typical day?
I don’t think there is a typical day in nursing! Depending on the day I could be assisting with giving anaesthetics with the anaesthetists, or scrubbing for complex vascular cases, co-ordinating the recovery room or looking after paediatric patients during procedures in the children’s hospital. We generally follow a structure of the patient from admission to the unit through their procedure to discharge from recovery either to the ward or home. However, emergency cases can present from A&E, or a patient could become very sick during or after their procedure requiring prompt treatment and potentially escalation to a high dependency or intensive care unit. Every patient is different and requires personalised care, which in turn makes every day different.
What do you enjoy about your role?
I enjoy caring for patients, some of whom come in very unwell and leave the department a lot better. I am lucky to work as part of a great team of other healthcare professionals, including other nurses, radiographers, junior/trainee doctors, healthcare assistants and consultants in interventional radiology, anaesthetics, interventional cardiology and vascular surgery.
What do you find challenging in your current role?
Balancing competing demands. Sometimes you need to do lots of tasks in a short amount of time, which can be challenging. Dealing with difficult situations, such as losing a patient, can be emotionally challenging and having a good relationship with your colleagues is key to getting through these difficult moments. Also, I am doing my MRes in Clinical Research at King’s College London, so balancing work, personal life and university is challenging.
What advice would you give to a current BMS student at St George’s who is keen to get in to a similar area of work as you?
Get some experience working with patients - whether that is as a care assistant in a hospital, nursing home or GP practice or in another capacity such as working in a pharmacy or volunteering somewhere. A good option is to join St John’s Ambulance, which has a LINKS branch at SGUL, and this will give you some clinical skills/knowledge, contact with injured/unwell people and also is fun. Try and talk to nurses about their roles as the job is so varied. You have nurses working in wards, general practices, operating theatres, ICU, A&E, mental health and learning disability care as well as nurse specialists / practitioners and nurse consultants. If you have an undergraduate degree then you can undertake an NMC approved course at master’s level (e.g. PGDip or MSc) in order to become a registered nurse and then build on your fundamental nursing skills to develop your career as you want.
Which aspects of your degree are relevant for your current role?
The degree is useful in many aspects of my current role. As a nurse you need a good knowledge of physiology, anatomy and pathology to understand what is wrong with your patient. I give many medications during every working day, so the pharmacology I learnt on the course is invaluable.
What would you say were the best / most challenging things about your degree?
The best thing is the clinical focus of the degree so you study very closely with the medical students so you get an appreciation for the clinical side. The worst part is that it is an intense course and requires a lot of extra study on top of the lectures.
If you could go back to your time at St George’s, would you do anything differently?
Plan better (getting on top of work and spending more time taking part in societies, etc)! Being a bad planner when it comes to deadlines did not help me, and better planning would’ve made everything a bit easier.
Do you have any advice or a message for current students at St George’s?
Make use of the resources available to you at SGUL. It is a small university so that means you get much better connection with the academic staff. Also, you are in a large London teaching hospital, giving you access to experience clinicians at work.
Do you have any advice or a message for students considering studying at St George’s?
If you are interested in studying any healthcare discipline then St George’s is a unique choice as the university is in the middle of a teaching hospital. I wouldn’t have become a nurse after doing BMS if I hadn’t have been exposed to the clinical environment you’re in at St George’s.