Leukaemia survivor to work as a nurse... on same ward as team who cared for her!
‘Thought of them as family’
DIAGNOSED with leukaemia aged two, Millie Osman was so struck by the selfless devotion of the nurses who cared for her she came to regard them as family.
Now she is paying them the ultimate compliment by following them into the profession – and working on the same ward.
The 22-year-old has just finished a degree in child nursing and will be based at Ipswich Hospital where she had chemotherapy as a youngster.
‘I was inspired by how positive they were,’ she said. ‘I wanted to be that nurse where children would go away saying, “Wasn’t she good?”.’
Miss Osman visited the hospital for treatment for two years and then returned for check-ups for the next five years. Describing the devotion of the medical team, she said nursery nurse Angie Fisher would come in on her days off, while former ward sister Lesley McGhee was her mum’s ‘rock’. Miss Osman, from Great Blakenham, Suffolk, has been given a provisional post at the hospital from September. As part of her degree at the University of Suffolk, she did work placements on the ward where she spent much of her childhood. Her former oncology nurse, Natalie Steward, was her course ‘mentor’.
Her mother Tracy, 48, was also inspired by the medical team – which included paediatric consultant Michael Bamford – and trained to become a social worker. She said: ‘It wasn’t like a hospital. It was like a place of safety.’