Council of Deans of Health
Hey all, my name is Emma Jane Robertson, I’m a nursing student in my third year at the university. This year I was accepted for the Council of Deans UK-wide Student Leadership Programme, a 6 month long course designed to create leadership skills in students who are working within a Nursing or Allied Health Professional role. So for the next few minutes let me grab your attention to tell you about what it’s about, why it’s important and if you’re a student nurse why you should apply for the course this coming year.
You may be thinking leadership as a student is premature? Surely I will work for a long time before even considering leadership and don’t need to worry about it now? That is the thoughts that went through my head on the train down to my first day on the course. As a, reasonably, fresh faced 2nd year nursing student, leadership hadn’t crossed my mind. I had a huge passion for nursing, the NHS and most importantly its patients, so did find myself questioning ways of better practice for them. But no, I could not even think of that so inexperienced and young, right? Then came an opportunity to join this programme and drinking a coffee in Costa, I off the cuff decided to apply, with no chance of getting in of course. Again wrong. Still, beyond my own understanding I was accepted onto the course and this new, unknown journey had begun.
The leadership programme began with a 2-day conference in Birmingham and is going to end with a single day workshop in London. This consists of leadership workshops, talks from people in all aspects of leadership in health care and learning about your own practical skills and creating your own leadership journey. Between the two conferences you get a mentor who works with you through your journey and the last conference ties it all off so you can then continue to use your leadership thereafter. I am currently in the in between, with my fantastic and inspiring mentor Jane Mair. In a brief blog I can only scrape the surface of what this course has done for me and the things I have done through the course. It has opened doors I could not have imagined, made me realise I can search for opportunities to make a change at whatever stage I am at and showed me a new insight into what working in healthcare is and let me see behind the scenes of the NHS and the vast roles in nursing – from a band to 5 to an academic to a manager of a hospital – and how each role is as equally challenging and important as the other. Its stretched me to be better, want better and not give up on our great, although flawed, NHS.
Do I know where I will end up in the nursing world, definitely not. But I do know I want to spend my career constantly learning more, experiencing more and if I get to make a difference to one patients journey it will be worth every ounce of work I spend my life doing.
So back to my beginning, how can I think of leadership? Should it be done as a student?
Yes. No doubt in my mind, no matter where you end up working you will use leadership. At university, as a student nurse, as a staff nurse, as a charge nurse, as a site director, you get my gist. Better leadership is better patient care, and is that not the goal of every single nurse out there.
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