Pioneer nurse calls time after 42 years
WALES’S first Macmillan head and neck cancer nurse specialist (CNS) is to retire after a 42-year career.
Carolyn, from Newcastle Emlyn, Carmarthenshire, has been a Macmillan professional for 21 years and works for Swansea Bay University Health Board at the maxillofacial unit in Morriston Hospital, Swansea.
Her position was an innovative leadership role created specifically to improve the quality and experience of care for patients dealing with the unique physical, practical and emotional challenges of a head and neck cancer diagnosis.
She spent her early nursing years working in St Lawrence Hospital in
Chepstow before moving to Morriston Hospital, working on plastic surgery wards.
It was her early experience in these wards that drove Carolyn to look at the support she could give to people who had undergone head and neck surgery.
Reflecting on her early career, Carolyn said: “We wondered what support our patients undergoing radical head and neck surgery were getting in the community, and as ward staff we could see how difficult it was for our patients.
“I felt that those with head and neck cancers didn’t have a voice and this needed to change.”
With more than 40 years of nursing experience, Carolyn is pleased that she has seen a change in people’s perceptions and reactions to cancer.
Speaking about the change in the way people view cancer, she said: “People used to hide away from the word cancer, saying it quietly as if it was shameful, and that there would be no successful outcomes as everyone they could recall had died.
“Thankfully, we are in times when more people are living after a cancer diagnosis.”
From her early childhood Carolyn knew that she wanted to be a nurse.
On her early ambition, she said: “I always wanted to be a nurse. As a child I had a dress-up costume, and I had to wear it every day.”
With a nursing career spanning four decades, Carolyn keenly notes the positive outcomes that her nursing career has given her.
Carolyn said: “The best parts about being a Macmillan nurse are being appreciated by my patients, their families and colleagues for the job that you do.
“Also, to be part of a team where everyone’s opinion is appreciated and that we have one aim: to ensure we do our best.”
Since becoming a Macmillan professional, Carolyn
has also fundraised for Macmillan, often teaming up with her daughter Bethan to raise money for the cancer charity.
Richard Pugh, Macmillan’s head of partnerships in Wales, said: “On behalf of everyone at Macmillan we would like to wish Carolyn the very best for a long and happy retirement.
“Forty-two years in nursing is an amazing achievement and Carolyn should be immensely proud of her career and will be missed by her colleagues and patients alike.
“Carolyn has been at the forefront of developing the head and neck cancer clinical nurse specialist role in Wales, as well as being a successful fundraiser for our charity.
“She will be very much missed, and we wish her all the very best with this new chapter in her life.”