Earlier this month, Karen Jarvis, Chief Nurse celebrated her 40-year anniversary in nursing. Karen began her training at Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Yorkhill in January 1981.
Since then Karen held several clinical roles within Paediatric Intensive Care, Paediatric Oncology, Adult Vascular Surgery, before moving to Community Nursing for 29 years, where she has held professional and management roles since 2007. This included teaching at Glasgow Caledonian University on the District Nursing programme.
"My 40-year career has been a varied and an incredible experience, 2020 has been one of the most challenging I have ever experienced, however the nursing response across our disciplines has been amazing. Our staff have worked above and beyond, I am proud to be a nurse and passionate about the profession and the contribution each nurse makes.
In each of these roles I am proud of what I have achieved in terms of learning, but also in the knowledge that I have been able to help patients and families in sometimes very distressing circumstances. This is particularly apparent in District Nursing, where you are able to build supportive relationships with patients and families.
I have been in management and professional roles since 2007, where the focus shifts, however I like to maintain some patient contact where possible which is very grounding, in fact a service user I met in 2015 when shadowing Care at Home said I would make a great District Nurse when I finished my training! During the pandemic I have moved to front line care within our Care Homes and I am now assisting in the delivery of COVID-19 vaccinations.
In my current role as Chief Nurse I feel I have achieved everything I set out to do 40 years ago, although I never imagined it would be in this particular role. I now have the opportunity to ensure we do all we can to ensure that our future nursing workforce are supported to develop to meet the changing needs of our population, and provide safe and person centred care"
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