Senior Lecturer in Older Adult Nursing, City University

Background
I am a senior lecturer at City University in the care for older people. I am a nurse by background and all my clinical and academic work has been applied to the care for older people. I am also interested in the emotional side of life and have become more and more interested in psychotherapy.

On my third ward as a student nurse I really enjoyed the older people I cared for. In retrospect I think I liked looking after those older patients for lots of “wrong” reasons. It gave me a sense of enjoyment that I think was (and probably still is to some extent) related to their dependence and need for my intervention. I suspect the older patients in my care enjoyed me too, in a way that is not really concurrent with my current ideals. My career really has been about old age and how to care for dependent older people in a creative and thoughtful way. Still trying – I hope.

PhD experiences
Title: Living bereavement: an exploration of health care workers’ responses to loss and grief in an UHS continuing care ward for older people

City University, awarded 2007.

Click here to view the abstract

Loss and grief are very much part of my personal history and development. I have been drawn to think about them a lot and the care staff I was working with identified what they called “living bereavement” as a significant part of their work. In addition I was asked via the education commission to focus on continuing care. I was a ward sister in a continuing care ward so this suited me.

I chose City University as this is where I work so it was the cheapest option and the most efficient in terms of time resource. Doing a PhD was a requirement as part of my job (although this has changed now and I probably could have given up and not damaged my job stability). On the whole I think I couldn’t help it and I really hope that I will now stop taking on new things and consolidate.

I studied full-time, carrying out the practical aspect of the research as part of a ward based education project. The writing up and academic process was achieved through organising my work so I could work at home (in the last year) up to three days a week. I did have a three month sabbatical to do the literature review in 2003 (I think).

In retrospect (and didn’t feel this at the time), what I enjoyed most about doing the PhD was having something worthwhile for myself. I now realise this was a privilege in my work even though it was very hard and required more determination and commitment than I thought I had. The best piece of advice I was given was: Start writing now! If I was advising others thinking about doing a PhD I’d ask: Do you really want to do it?

Time, internal strength and changes in my personal life were the main challenges of doing the PhD. I had a lot of changes in my personal relationships during the time I did my thesis. I think this was helpful as it meant I could be focussed on myself. Conversely, the PhD has probably contributed to the fact that I have not made lasting relationships for some years now.

The Viva was very disappointing. I had practised a lot but they didn’t want to know much as they were very pleased with the thesis. I did then get pissed off with the very minor additions they wanted. I was very unreasonable and precious about my work by this stage. My advice to students about to do their Viva: Follow your supervisor’s advice – you don’t know what is coming.

Post-PhD
It’s too soon really to talk about my career path since getting my doctorate. I’m just taking stock at the moment. I was already in full time employment in a job I enjoy while doing my PhD so I haven’t had to look for another job. I got a senior lectureship last year and this was largely because of the PhD. I have some ideas in the pipeline to follow up on aspects of my thesis and I would really like to supervise others in the field. I am already doing some co-supervision work with a PhD student and have an MSc student whose thesis is in a similar field. My study was informed by psychoanalytic theory and practice and I intend developing my skills here. I would like to build up expertise in education and research trying to understand the psychodynamics of care for older people at the end of their lives. I would like to build up my practice in supporting care staff to provide end of life care.

BSG/NOGS
I was a member of BSG until about three years ago. I think Generations Review is helpful because it lets you know what is going on in a wider context.

Future plans
I would like to progress in nurse education and focus on research related support and development of emotion work for care staff and gerontology. I think one of the key issues for an ageing population which needs to be addressed by researchers now and in the future relates to coping with dependent old age. Trying to think about issues such as chronic illness and dying is particularly difficult as it reminds us all of painful and difficult aspects of living. I think it is what most of us fear about old age and should be addressed in a thoughtful and honest way. I find other aspects of gerontology interesting and encouraging too but dependent old age seems an important challenge for older and younger people to contemplate.