What is your biggest professional achievement?
Getting this job! Making the move to health libraries required a lot of extra-curricular learning on my part. While working in my last job I shadowed an NHS librarian at RSCH and the Nursing and Midwifery subject librarian at the University of Brighton, practised searching subject-specific databases until the cows came home, learned as much as I could about medical database thesauri, and volunteered as a governor for Sussex Partnership NHS Trust to give me some insight into how the NHS works, not to mention many hours of CPD sessions on health librarianship. It has paid off at last.
Who has inspired you most in life?
Can I have two? On a personal level, my three incredible daughters. They inspire me to attempt to be a better person every day. I want the world to be the best place it can possibly be for them, and that starts with me. I’m so proud of them. On a professional level, a clinical librarian at the RSCH. He was the first person who explained the role of clinical librarianship to me, and I saw directly the impact his work had on the neonatal team at the hospital. He showed me cards and photos that he had received from parents of babies who would not have lived had he not provided timely and up-to-date information to the clinicians that were caring for them. It was the first time I realised that librarians can help save lives.