This week I attended a careers event for 600 school children in Renfrewshire which has had me reflecting on my nursing career and the path it has taken. I often get asked if I am still a nurse and how I came to be working as a travel nurse.

Well I've been nursing since I left school 21 years ago.  I initially specialised in accident and emergency nursing  - a great speciality and an area that I very much miss working in.  However, although I loved my job as nursing sister in a busy A/E department, I needed a job that was going to work around a shift working husband and family life. 

I applied to work in a small travel clinic very much thinking it would be a 'make do' place to work in until I could return to A/E.  As it turned out, I loved the speciality of travel medicine so much that I set up my own private clinic in Glasgow in 2003.  Along the way I have undertaken extensive training in travel medicine and have a recognised and highly specialised diploma awarded by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons (Glasgow). In fact all of our nursing team here have completed and been awarded this diploma, something we are naturally very proud of.

So I'm no longer a specialist in A/E nursing but I am a specialist nurse in travel health and over the last 9 years my clinic has evolved to be the leading private travel clinic in Glasgow. We help hundreds of travellers each month get protected for their foreign trip and I love spending time with clients, finding out about their travel plans, knowing I can help them stay well when they are abroad.