Student Nurse to Associate Director of Nursing
Easter 1984 my last term of a theology and religious studies degree at Bristol University but what next? My boyfriend (now my husband of 33 years) suggested nursing. I looked into it and decided I could give it a go. My poor mother was horrified, not least because I disliked hospitals and became quite queasy on entering them. I assured her I had found a nice modern hospital that didn’t have “that smell”. So Penny Gage joined the August ’84 graduate 
nursing set at Charing Cross Hospital.
I loved it from the minute I started on my first ward – cardiology with 12 beds for “sleep and rest therapy” – radical treatment for those who had had a cardiac event. I struggled with theatres (I can’t stand for long periods so I was allowed a stool after passing out on several occasions), maternity – some of those midwives! And psychiatry – it really was hard to know who were patients and who were staff, especially as several of the staff had also been inpatients. I loved A&E and saw that as my destiny.
On passing my finals I married and we moved to a little village in Buckinghamshire. I was shown round Stoke Mandeville Hospital and there were plenty of jobs to choose from including A&E but on the day I visited there weren’t any patients and it became clear it was very different to a busy London Hospital A&E. I decided to work in the Spinal Injuries Unit and did my spinal injuries training and became a junior sister.
I had a few run ins with the senior nurse as I wouldn’t be the handmaid to the doctors and dared to fail students. One day I was in the store room deciding how many toilet rolls to order from the next month and decided this was not where I wanted to be so I applied to become a District Nurse. I did my training at the then Oxford Polytechnic and became a District Nursing Sister in Amersham and High Wycombe.
We then moved to Walthamstow and I had my first son and daughter and then I went on the evening and twilight nursing service to keep my hand in. I then moved onto a job share but when my fourth child was born I was told they couldn’t continue this and so I decided to become a practice nurse. I thought this would be quite easy but it turned out I was very wrong. It was a very steep but very enjoyable learning curve. I became one of the first practice nurse prescribers.
I was very lucky as funding was available to do the nurse practitioner degree at South Bank University and so I did this and then was offered a job to support the students back in their workplaces. I travelled all around the south of England and continued to work clinically. I also lectured and continued doing this when we moved to Watford where I worked for 3 years setting up a practice for the homeless. This was a challenging time working in substance misuse and I also did my independent non-medical prescribing. I then moved to a practice in Aylesbury as an Advanced Nurse Practitioner.
When we moved to Nottingham in 2009 I worked as a Clinical Nurse Specialist for Long Term Conditions for a team of matrons. During this time we became a social enterprise and I was the staff board member.
In 2015 I was successful in being appointed as the Deputy Associate Director for Health Partnerships and am now the Associate Director of Nursing for Community Health Services.
I have enjoyed all of my nursing career and have been fortunate to have worked in many different geographical areas and environments. My current job is the most challenging but the most rewarding.
One of the highlights of my nursing career was to become a Queen’s Nurse and I am very proud to wear my badge and have this title.
Penny Keith BA, BSc, MSc, RGN, DN, Queen’s Nurse
