Trish Tsuro – BSc Nursing (Adult)

I started off at the University of Lincoln as a nursing student and I did adult nursing, did my three years and towards the end of it in we did our service improvement module. And I remember we were assessed by nursing professionals already in practice.

And I asked the question, so surely this cannot all be new?  Some of these must have been tried and tested somewhere. What is bridging the gap between schooling and practice? I didn’t realize what I was asking was a research question and not just research, but clinical research.

An opportunity came up for clinical academic fellowship towards the end of the third year, and my personal tutor encouraged me to apply. In fact, I think her words were “if you do not put in that application, I shall put that application in for you”.  So I put in my application and I was interviewed for this clinical academic fellowship. Which at that time, I don’t think I quite understood what it entailed. All I knew it was that it was helping me answer the question I had asked of what was informing education and practice and when I went for my first job, I was doing my clinical academic fellowship while I did the preceptorship.

So it was a busy year, but a fun year. So that is how I sort of like landed into research, fell in love with it. I spent two years on critical care bang in the middle of the pandemic. We had to think on our feet.

So after two years and towards the end of the pandemic having experienced long covid, I was having nightmares. I would wake up to go and change this range of medication in the middle of the night and realize actually I’m at home, I’m dreaming. And it was hard. And I started to think about how I was going to carry on.

I’ve now got a job as a research nurse working in on clinical trials, which is quite exciting and again tickling my research interest. I opened up other clinical trials at and at Pilgrim Hospital, which has been exciting. I think we’ve got 5 now open.

There are plans to become a University Trust; it’s been exciting to be a part of that change and to contribute to that.  And so it’s been an interesting journey, it’s been all learning, but I’m a lifelong learner. I like to learn. I’m now doing my masters in clinic in clinical research delivery pathway and it’s just continuing from the experience of being on the clinical Academic Fellowship.

So it’s all coming together quite nicely for me and I’ve actually enjoyed that. The network opportunities have meant that when I’ve needed help, I’ve known exactly who to go to. And then this year, all the papers that I worked on when I was a Clinical Academic Fellow, in the School of Health and Social Care, have hit publication. So it’s been it’s been amazing seeing my name in print up there with all the big names and being acknowledged as taking part in academic research that is being used to inform delivery. So yeah, it’s been, it’s been exciting, it’s been challenging and it doesn’t seem like it’s slowing down anytime soon.

After I finished the clinical academic fellowship. The deputy chief nursing director said “What are you going to do?” And I said “I don’t know. I’ve only just finished my first year of nursing and finished this fellowship and I’m not sure where to go”.  She mentioned an opportunity to apply for a leadership programme with the Florence Nightingale Foundation.

And for the first time they were being offered to people who were not in leadership positions. So, it was a rare opportunity, and I was one of only 70 nationally who went on that scholarship and the only one from Lincolnshire. So that was exciting.  Once a month I travelled to London for my classes and yeah got this award as a Florence Nightingale future leader.

Apart from providing network and insights and what happens to other trusts, it was quite nice to hear and experience what others did in the urban settings.  It was quite powerful to learn other people’s stories. And I think to an extent I felt fortunate to have not been experiencing some of the things that my other colleagues had gone through. The racism was and discrimination was stark. It was sad to hear. Most of the times when, um, my colleagues spoke about their experiences. Usually it was a wet eyes at the end of those narrations. Because some of these experiences, I wouldn’t have wanted to go through them. So it was a lot to take on.

But the bonding and networking that’s happened meant that when I then experienced or was around colleagues who experienced those things, I could either signpost or relate or use those examples to help people around me.  On the back of that leadership scholarship I have become Chair of the BAME (REACH) network in Lincoln as well.

I think I’ve always thrived under pressure. I’m, I’m like a diamond. The more the pressure, the brighter I shine. I come from a culture where when an opportunity is presented to you, you take it. So that is exactly what I’ve done. When the opportunity has been presented to me, I’ve taken it. What people don’t realize is. One thing always leads to another. Those opportunities have led me to networking with people who have then said, well, you’ve got that, so why don’t you do ABC? And I’m one person who can take advice very easily.

You give me an opportunity to learn an option or opportunity to grow an opportunity to develop and I will take it. And that’s exactly what I would tell them because a lot of people shy away from opportunity. Some people have done all the learning they want. That’s fine. Well, I will have it. Thank you very much.

The only person who can stop you is you. It’s as simple as that, there are opportunities out there. when you go through life looking down that’s all you’re going to see. But when you look up, you might decide to change course. So I went into nursing not realizing how much you can do in nursing. I always knew that actually the ward might not be right for me because of my curiosity, and I realized actually, no, it didn’t. It didn’t have. I didn’t have to stay on the ward. I could do other things, and so I fell in love with critical care through placements. And then critical care had an aspect of research which I’ve already started working on. And when I was working in research, it opened up the Florence Nightingale. So, one thing will always lead to another. So, people just need to hold your head up, look far and wide. If you follow the crowd, you go as far as the crowd. But if you think, wait a minute, let me just step out. You’ll go further because you’re going to go on into uncharted territory.

I’m a risk taker, I’m afraid. Yes, just keeping on asking questions because that’s where if you follow the answers that’s when you’ll discover, oh actually I can do this and ohh I’d rather try that. So yeah, just keep asking questions.

The thing that did come out of the Florence Nightingale leadership scholarship was writing your own story. I wrote an article that was entitled ‘I wasn’t black until I became a nurse’, and I wrote that after I had my first COVID infection. At this time the Trust introduced a reverse mentoring scheme, and I was paired off to reverse mentor of the Trust Chief Executive Officer (CEO). At that time, I was a band 5 and I’ve been meeting with the CEO from 2020 onwards, once a month as part of the reverse mentoring program.