Norma Dodds 

I started my nursing career, aged 17, as a Nursing Auxiliary in 1977. In this role I realised how rewarding it was to care for others. I went on to do my Enrolled Nurse training, qualifying in 1981. My first post was in in a Rehabilitation Ward for people who had suffered head injuries, in Edinburgh at the Astley Ainslie Rehabilitation Hospital. After the birth of my son, I took a position at the Eastern General Hospital working in continuing care where I remained until 1999 when I was encouraged by my Clinical Nurse Manager to undertake the conversion course to become a Registered General Nurse.

I have been inspired by many great nurses throughout my career, and they have encouraged and supported me to progress through all grades of nursing. In 2001 I was very privileged to take on a Senior Charge Nurse role in a Medicine of the Elderly ward. Throughout the 13 years as a Senior Charge Nurse, I strived to be a present and supportive of my team, providing a high standard of care and recognising the huge benefit of using reflective practice, as a tool for improvement.

Throughout my career, I thoroughly enjoyed the relationships that are formed with patients and their loved ones, particularly having the honour of supporting them through their illness or end of life care. I recognised early on in my career the importance of succession planning and have achieved this through every position I have by always taking a pride in supporting other nurses with their learning and providing the same support and encouragement to progress that I had received.

In 2014, I took on a new challenge in the post of Manger for Supplementary Staffing. This gave me a whole new outlook on the differing needs of services across the organisation, and I learned how to support services who were struggling with recruitment and maintaining safe staffing levels. This ignited an interest in the link between workforce, quality assurance and achieving person centred care. I undertook the Scottish Improvement Leadership certificate in 2017 and was successful in promotion to Lead Nurse for Excellence in Care – Scotland’s national assurance system for nursing and midwifery. I enjoyed great job satisfaction in this role, working nationally at a strategic level.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, I undertook many different roles which included rapid recruitment and supporting the Occupational Health Service. I retired from my full-time position in March 2021 but happily returned on a part time basis to continue supporting Excellence in Care and became a registered vaccinator delivering the Covid -19 vaccination programme.

Outside of work, I have been happily married to Dave for 40 years, also a retired nurse. We have two children, our daughter Shona who has followed in our footsteps is a Registered Nurse and our son David married to Fiona who have 3 children Charlie, Duncan and Sienna.
I have taken flower arranging courses at night school and often do wedding and funeral floristry for friends and family.

After 44 years of nursing, the one piece of advice I would give would be; always be kind to yourself and others along your journey of life.