International Nurses Day 2020: “I loved nursing from the minute I started on my first ward.”

Penny Keith

For International Nurses Day, Penny Keith shares how her nursing career, which has spanned 36 years, has evolved from a graduate nurse to her current role as Associate Director of Nursing at the Trust. She also talks about all the challenges along the way.

Easter 1984 was my last term of a theology and religious studies degree at Bristol University but what next? My boyfriend (now my husband of 32 years) suggested nursing. I looked into it and decided I could give it a go. My poor mother was horrified, not least because I disliked hospitals and became quite queasy on entering them. I assured her I had found a nice modern hospital that didn’t have “that smell”.  So, Penny Gage joined the August ’84 graduate nursing set at Charing Cross Hospital.

I loved nursing from the minute I started on my first ward – cardiology with 12 beds for “sleep and rest therapy” – radical treatment for those who had had a cardiac event. I struggled with theatres (I can’t stand for long periods so I was allowed a stool after passing out on several occasions), maternity – some of those midwives! And psychiatry – it really was hard to know who were patients and who were staff, especially as several of the staff had also been inpatients. I loved A&E and saw that as my destiny.

Penny Keith as a student nurse

On passing my finals I married and we moved to a little village in Buckinghamshire. I was shown round Stoke Mandeville Hospital and there were plenty of jobs to choose from including A&E. But on the day I visited there weren’t any patients and it became clear it was very different to a busy London Hospital A&E. I decided to work in the Spinal Injuries Unit and did my spinal injuries training and became a junior sister.

I had a few run-ins with the senior nurse as I wouldn’t be the handmaid to the doctors and dared to fail students. One day I was in the store room deciding how many toilet rolls to order from the next month and decided this was not where I wanted to be so I applied to become a District Nurse. I did my training at the then Oxford Polytechnic and became a District Nursing Sister in Amersham and High Wycombe.

We moved to Walthamstow and I had my first son and daughter and then I went on the evening and twilight nursing service to keep my hand in. I moved onto a job share but when my fourth child was born, I was told they couldn’t continue this and so I decided to become a practice nurse. I thought this would be quite easy but as it turned out I was very wrong. It was a very steep but very enjoyable learning curve. I became one of the first practice nurse prescribers.

I was very lucky as funding was available to do the nurse practitioner degree at South Bank University and so after completing this I was offered a job to support the students back in their workplaces. I travelled all around the south of England and continued to work clinically. I lectured and continued doing this when we moved to Watford where I worked for 3 years setting up a practice for the homeless. This was a challenging time working in substance misuse and I also did my independent non-medical prescribing. I then moved to a practice in Aylesbury as an Advanced Nurse Practitioner.

When we moved to Nottingham in 2009, I worked as a Clinical Nurse Specialist for Long Term Conditions for a team of matrons. During this time, we became a social enterprise and I was the staff board member.

In 2015 I was successful in being appointed as the Deputy Associate Director for Health Partnerships and then became the interim Associate Director.

I have enjoyed all of my nursing career and have been fortunate to have worked in many different geographical areas and environments. My current job as Associate Director of Nursing at the Trust is the most challenging but the most rewarding.

One of the highlights of my nursing career was to become a Queen’s Nurse and I am very proud to wear my badge and have this title.

Have you considered nursing as a career? If you would like to find out more about working for Nottinghamshire Healthcare visit: www.nottinghamshirehealthcare.nhs.uk/workingforus