00:00:02 A research nurse is somebody who’s done their usual nurse training, but has then gone on to develop an interest into clinical research. I think the word research puts a lot of people off, they immediately put up barriers and think – oh paperwork, that's boring, I don’t want to do that. But for me it was always the sort of the scientific thinking behind the research that was always very very interesting.
00:01:18 To start with in my early childhood I went to a private school. I had a lot of support at home, but the wheels came off unfortunately when my parents divorced, and then I didn’t have that home support. I then went to a local comprehensive school, and it was where I learnt that actually you could not work very hard and still get away with it. So things were not so good for me at that point. I started off leaving school just with A-Levels, I didn’t make it to University, and I went into the secretarial route. Other things happened in my life which meant I had to rethink what I was going to do long term. I thought of two things, it was either going to be nursing or speech therapy. Speech therapy meant going to University for four years, so that was really out of the question. Nursing on the other hand, you got a bursary, which was a liveable wage, and the chance to then flourish in all sort of other ways later on. I then was able to use an opportunity where there was a job in the Oncology Department, and it was in that Oncology Department that I became interested in looking after the patients who were on trials, delivering some of their treatments. And that – that led to my interest in trial work developing. And I've sort of snaked my way through my career by doing that, looking for opportunities to further my interest in the trials work. Professionally it was the best thing that I’d ever done, I've no regrets, and there are still opportunities for me to do other things if I wanted them. So you know my pathway hasn’t ended even yet.
00:02:02 Possibly the only thing that's held me back really is my own inhibitions, my own lack of self-confidence. When there's been an opportunity for instance to do something really quite dramatically more advanced in my usual workplace I've quite often been reticent about that, because I've felt that I hadn’t got the academic qualifications to back that up. I think what motivates me is getting positive feedback from people. Knowing that I've done a good job.
ENDS
Sara Stearn
Sara Stearn
A research nurse is somebody who’s done their usual nurse training, but has then gone on to develop an interest into clinical research. I think the word research puts a lot of people off, they immediately put up barriers and think – oh paperwork, that's boring, I don’t want to do that. But for me it was always the sort of the scientific thinking behind the research that was always very very interesting.
To start with in my early childhood I went to a private school. I had a lot of support at home, but the wheels came off unfortunately when my parents divorced, and then I didn’t have that home support. I then went to a local comprehensive school, and it was where I learnt that actually you could not work very hard and still get away with it. So things were not so good for me at that point. I started off leaving school just with A-Levels, I didn’t make it to University, and I went into the secretarial route. Other things happened in my life which meant I had to rethink what I was going to do long term. I thought of two things, it was either going to be nursing or speech therapy. Speech therapy meant going to University for four years, so that was really out of the question. Nursing on the other hand, you got a bursary, which was a liveable wage, and the chance to then flourish in all sort of other ways later on. I then was able to use an opportunity where there was a job in the Oncology Department, and it was in that Oncology Department that I became interested in looking after the patients who were on trials, delivering some of their treatments. And that – that led to my interest in trial work developing. And I've sort of snaked my way through my career by doing that, looking for opportunities to further my interest in the trials work. Professionally it was the best thing that I’d ever done, I've no regrets, and there are still opportunities for me to do other things if I wanted them. So you know my pathway hasn’t ended even yet.
Possibly the only thing that's held me back really is my own inhibitions, my own lack of self-confidence. When there's been an opportunity for instance to do something really quite dramatically more advanced in my usual workplace I've quite often been reticent about that, because I've felt that I hadn’t got the academic qualifications to back that up. I think what motivates me is getting positive feedback from people. Knowing that I've done a good job.
ENDS
Sarah Stearn works as a research nurse and describes this as "somebody who's done their usual nurse training but has then gone on to develop an interest in clinical research." She is motivated by "Getting positive feedback from people. Knowing that I've done a good job."
As part of icould's continuous development, we plan to include additional material from icould storytellers in the form of Blogs and other information which will enrich their filmed stories. So watch this space!
The tag map below allows you to explore some of the many stories here on icould.
