I left school to pursue a degree in Jewellery & Silversmithing at the Birmingham School of Jewellery. Despite loving my work and achieving First Class Honours, I couldn’t see myself in the life of a designer artist and although I couldn’t put my finger on it at the time, I needed a greater purpose.
Having found myself accidentally working my way up management in a pub brand, I knew a big change was needed. After considerable research into medicine, I eventually decided on a degree in Radiography instead and qualified in 2006 and I loved working for the patients. I worked for three years in busy departments in the NHS and privately, before accepting a National Radiography Manager’s job with Lifescan.
Whilst not in my job description, I found myself in a key role integrating this small company’s radiology IT systems into the Spire Healthcare network when they bought Lifescan. It turned out to be a complex task which ignited my enthusiasm in clinical IT systems and I was fortunate that Spire Healthcare recognised this and offered me a position as a Clinical Implementation Specialist in the central IT team.
I now project manage and deliver clinical software to our hospitals, as well as reviewing and improving software that we already have. I love making the applications work for the clinical staff and bridging the gap between complicated IT systems and the clinical end users experience and I also love that my work still ultimately benefits patients.
I like to immerse myself in other countries and cultures and one of my most treasured experiences from a year long trip round South East Asia was living with an Indonesian family in Sumatra for a few weeks as part of their family, immersed in their culture and language.