Chapter 18

‘The mind once stretched, by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.’ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Graduation days are filled with hope; a sense of pride and an expectation of what life has to offer. They are inspirational and open doors to new ways of working, new opportunities and new possible horizons. And those I attended were no different. I have attended four in total. My very first university qualification was the Certificate in Education completed in 1996, followed by a Bachelor of Education Degree (Honours) in 2001, a Master’s in Specialist Community Public Health Nursing in occupational health in 2009; a Post-Graduate Certificate in Education, (PGCE) in 2013, which also afforded, with a bit of extra work, Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy and the post-nominal letters FHEA, which recognises my commitment to learning and teaching in higher education, a Post Graduate Certificate in Health Coaching and Behaviour Change in 2022, and finally a Master’s in Education in 2023.

My dad couldn’t come to my very first graduation ceremony as he was in hospital. I wanted him there and he wanted to be there. Nonplussed, I hired my gown for another week and off we went, with my husband and my mum to visit dad in hospital. It was a proud moment.

Thankfully he did get to my Degree ceremony at Huddersfield. But sadly, that was the last one he was ever going to attend.

Arriving at your graduation ceremony is a proud moment. You are dressed in the regalia that tells everyone your degree status and the challenges overcome to get there. And there are always challenges.

I had been fortunate to start my Doctorate in Education whilst working for Leeds Beckett University in 2015, but life had been challenging and ultimately after successfully completing the first year, I took a break. In the end it was difficult to return. My one single regret in my academic career is that I never carried on. During the time I had been on an amazing journey of learning and self-discovery; perhaps it simply wasn’t meant to be at the time. Retirement is already bringing this aspiration back into my thoughts. I always said I would complete my doctorate when I retired, and here I am; so why not.

I recently worked it out. In total I have over the years, accumulated over 100 letters after my name. Not bad eh! Who was it who said I would never amount to anything?

I’ve always fancied being a postgraduate of Oxford University. With so much on line learning today, there might just be an opportunity and certainly as I am looking to develop my writing skills, I expect one to come up very soon.

I absolutely adore Oxford and have visited multiple times. Imbued in British history and popular culture, Oxford is a city of cobbled streets, beautiful architecture and of course, the colleges themselves. These wonderful buildings epitomise the history of Oxford.

It also has an amazing bookshop, teeming with medical and nursing literature, which I could literally spend hours in. I know, I need to get a life! It reminds me of the days I used to shop for nursing books on Leeds High Street. Much has changed since then.

In 2017, I was invited to present at Oxford University all expenses paid. I stayed at Keble College. What was interesting about that I hear you say? Well in May on a very wet and particularly miserable day, I was in Morley, Leeds and decided to nip in to a charity shop and that’s when I saw him. A bear from Keble College. The name emblazoned across his blue jumper. Wearing a little red neckerchief. I fell in love with this little bear. I’ve nicknamed him Keble Bear, not very original I know, but how extraordinary. There I am searching for memorabilia for my upcoming 60th birthday celebrations and he’s right there on my doorstep.

The conference was called ‘Accounts of Illness in Contemporary and Modern-day texts’. My focus being on the importance of understanding the complexity of patient stories especially those surrounding the uniqueness of suffering and how nurses can reduce this suffering through compassionate engagement. I also spoke about how suffering is expressed in so many different ways, through the storytellers, the photographers and videographers and now podcasters, historians, novelists and poets as emphasised in the poem ‘There are Different ways of Knowing’ An amazing piece of poetry that tells the story of the suffering of coal miners in America. I believe it was written by Charles Levenstein. Who has been significantly involved in the health and wellbeing of workers in America.

At this conference I met an editor of BMJ Medical Humanities Online and she encouraged me to write for the journal. Not waiting to be asked twice I jumped at the chance to write a blog, which eventually became four.

Nursing Humanities
Improving the chances of delivering person-centred care
Can revalidation be a platform for praxis and the emancipation of the nursing profession?
Encouraging Patient Narrative as a Humanitarian Act of Kindness

All of which can be found on my Published Blogs page. You can also click on the links above if you would prefer.

These blogs are some of the very first I wrote. My blogging prowess didn’t stop there. I had another itch I needed to scratch and I made contact with the Editor of Evidence Based Nursing and started to blog for them too.

I have also published with the QNI, RCN Bulletin and Sigma Reflections. And now I have my own platform to publish on. As I keep saying… From Little Acorns

From graduation; to graduation days, conferences and blogging, my journey has covered it all and more. Graduation days as I said right at the beginning of this chapter are inspirational and open doors to new ways of working, new opportunities and new possible horizons. Whether you make that first connection at a university or elsewhere, opportunities when you seek them out come at you fast and furious. Believe me. I’m living proof.