The Flying Nurse!
Mon, 05 Mar 2012 10:30:00 GMT
Student Sarah heads Down Under to take care and advice to the Outback ... by plane
AFTER a career in banking, Sarah Lawley switched to nursing studies at the University of Huddersfield. And soon she could be flying high above the tropical landscapes of northern Australia, taking airborne advice and healthcare to remote communities.
Meanwhile, as she prepares for her Australian adventure, Sarah waits to find out if she has scooped a top nursing award. She has made the shortlist for the Outstanding Student Nurse category in the recently launched Cavell Nurses’ Trust Scholarship Awards. If she wins, she gets up to £2,000 to help pay for a work placement.
The winners will be announced at a London ceremony in April. But win or lose, Sarah Lawley will press ahead with her plans to experience life as a flying nurse Down Under. And she hopes to help forge ties between the University of Huddersfield and James Cook University in Cairns, Queensland, where she is headed later this year.
For Pontefract-born Sarah, it is a big change from dispensing financial advice as a senior personal banking manager for Lloyds, based in various West Yorkshire towns. She was a banker for 21 years before deciding on a career switch.
“I just felt that I wanted to do something different that involved caring for children and families. I just wanted to make a difference to people's lives,” says Sarah.
She enrolled for a BSc degree in child nursing at the University of Huddersfield, and she graduates at the close of this academic year. But her goal is to become a health visitor, helping families and children deal with a wide range of health and social issues, so she intends to move on to postgraduate study that will provide her with qualifications in the field.
For a taste of work experience she could hardly be travelling any further. Sarah’s sister and her family have been living in Cairns, Australia, for many years. This helped Sarah to make contacts with health visitors and children’s nurses whose work takes them over vast tracts of territory, meaning that they emulate the famous flying doctors, hiring small planes to visit communities that include settlements of Aborigines.
Sarah too will be chartering two-seated aircraft to take her out and about in the Outback.
She has visited her sister in Cairns and knows what to expect in Australia.
“ I really I like the climate, but the main reason I want to go is because in the future I might be interested in doing research as well and I want to be able to compare the health promotion systems in Australia and the UK. They have a lot of really good practices Down Under that we could learn from.”
Meanwhile, Sarah – who is married and has a ten-year-old daughter and two grown stepsons – is delighted that she took the plunge from banking to study at the University of Huddersfield.
“It has been a really refreshing change to move into nursing and I am keen to continue my studies.”
