ARU Blogs — Jackie

My name’s Jackie and I’m a first year Operating Department Practice (ODP) student studying at the Chelmsford campus. I have two grown up children, one of which is at university too. I’ve had successful careers in IT and education and while I’ve enjoyed both careers, it has always been a long held ambition of mine to work in healthcare.

At the beginning of 2020 and after much thought and reviewing of finances, I made the decision to change career and return to university and so my ODP journey began in Sept 2020.

It has been a challenging year for everyone, especially university students and we’ve all had to adapt to a new way of learning and life in general. Face to face lectures were replaced by on-line learning and for healthcare students, placements were delayed. It brought a number of challenges but despite everything, there’s been a number of positives, I’ve updated my IT skills, got a good hospital placement and become firm friends with some of my course mates. What’s so refreshing is that we all come from different backgrounds, vary widely in age and have different experiences but we’re all fascinated about the surgical environment and so passionate about patient care.

Now that I’ve finished the first anaesthetic placement and begin scrub, join me on my journey as I transition from novice student to registered practitioner.