On Our Mind

Posted on 24 Apr 2024

It's Administrative Professionals' Day, and we're celebrating our hardworking administrative colleagues for their invaluable contributions to our services and supported teams. We spoke to Karen, who has worked in administration since she was 18, and graciously shares her remarkable administrative career journey.

My journey in administration began in the depths of time when only manual typewriters were available (yes, I am that old!) and tippex was your best friend. On leaving school I went to college to do a medical secretarial course and amongst the subjects taught was medical abbreviations.  I can clearly remember the teacher; she was an ex-ward sister of the old-fashioned variety and boy did she scare us, but she was brilliant in instilling into us the importance of the new language we had to learn and how confusing it could be.

After completing the course, my first job was working in general practice and that was certainly an eye opener for a young, naïve 18-year-old.  I learnt very quickly the importance of asking the right questions and making sure you got all the relevant information down.  Early on I sent the GP on emergency call-out to a patient who was haemorrhaging.  I can remember him asking me where they were haemorrhaging from and realising in my panic that I hadn’t asked the patient this vital piece of information.  It turned out to be a minor nosebleed which had stopped just before he got there - oops!

It was a good grounding and from there I moved on to be secretary to the Clinical Genetics Team, a sub-regional specialty based at the City Hospital.  I then learnt of a vacancy at the University of Nottingham Medical School for a personal assistant to the Regional Postgraduate Dean for medical education.  It was during this time that things were changing rapidly in medical education, and it became apparent that there were opportunities to progress my career in administration because of this.  Thankfully I had a very supportive Postgraduate Dean who encouraged and funded me to undertake firstly the Open University’s Professional Certificate in Management followed rapidly by the Professional Diploma in Management.  From this I was able to take on the role of a deputy section leader at Trent Postgraduate, part of Trent Regional Health Authority and then manager of Mid Trent Postgraduate Medical Education.

Regretfully redundancy then came my way, but luck was on my side and a colleague asked me if I could help them out as a locum Practice Manager due to long term sickness of their current manager. The locum post turned into a permanent one so off I went again on yet another learning curve - which this time included the mysteries and intricacies of practice funding, payrolls, pensions and the important development of policies and procedures.  I was also responsible for the up-keep of the building - oh the joys of drains and sewage!

My time in general practice came to an end leading me to take on the role of personal assistant to the Consultant Nurse for Older People and her team based at Lings Bar Hospital (before the days of it becoming part of Nottinghamshire Healthcare).  Redundancy once again appeared on the horizon and I was fortunate enough to be appointed as Executive Assistant to the Chair and Non-Executive Directors of Nottinghamshire Healthcare, a post I held for nearly 12 years before organisational change set me off on yet another adventure, this time as Communications Team Administrator, a post from which I will retire in July of this year.

I guess I have been lucky in my career.  I have taken advantage of opportunities as they have presented themselves to me and can quite honestly say that I have enjoyed the continuing challenges of change but in all this I have been fortunate enough to have some fantastic colleagues and met some brilliant people on my journey and am proud to have played a small part in this wonderful institution, the NHS.