I spent years in a trauma centre treating the broken and bleeding victims of gang warfare in Hollywood. It certainly prepared me well for my life in Holyrood
Politician on a mission to help people
As a bright-eyed young nurse, Emma Harper was eager to meet challenges her training had prepared her for.
But when lack of opportunity forced the farm girl to pack her suitcase and take a job at a Los Angeles trauma unit, she had no idea what was lying in wait.
The fast-paced life inside Cedars- Sinai Medical Centre was a world away from what she was used to in Dumfries and Galloway.
Gu n violence between gang rivals e x pos e d her to har rowing scenes and opened Emma’s eyes to the challenges faced by people on the fringes of society.
Now, 28 years later, the SNP MSP believes cutting her teeth in Hollywood has helped her get to grips with executing her duties as a pol it ician in Holyrood.
Emma, 52, moved to LA in 1990 at the height of the city’s gangland v iolence epidemic after struggling to find work in Scotland.
Within weeks, she was helping remove bullets from shooting victims in West Hollywood, where she went on to run a surgery team.
She believes her 14-year career in the US gave her the perfect grounding for her current job of representing South Scotland at the Scottish Parliament.
Emma said: “I moved out to the States at a time when it was difficult to get on in a career as a nurse in Scotland. It was supposed to be for a year but I ended up staying and meeting my husband.
“I went from a completely rural life in Dumfries and Galloway to working in the
trauma unit of a huge hospital in one of the biggest, most multicultural cities in the world.
“It was an incredible experience which I think stood me in good stead for becoming a politician.
“When I first went out there, I had 18 months’ experience as an operating room nurse and in general surgery.
“There were six floors of operating rooms at Cedars- Sinai and I ended up going straight into the trauma unit.
“Frequently I would be starting a shift where we had someone on the operating table with gunshot wounds and the surgeons would be taking bullets out of a victim’s heart or head or liver.
“It was a fast-paced life and the years went by quickly but I wouldn’t change it for anything.”
Dozens of film stars have been treated at Cedars- Sinai – f rom Arnold Schwarzenegger, who received emergency heart surgery, to Kendall Jenner after a botched vitamin IV drip and Kim Kardashian, who gave birth earlier this
year. But the patients Emma remembers most weren’t the rich and famous.
She added: “One night I will never forget was when we had a 14-year-old Chinese girl who died after being shot in the head during a drive-by attack which went wrong.
“I can remember it clearly because I was part of the team receiving the organs after her parents consented for her to be a donor.
“She was in the cardiac surgery department and I was part of the liver team that night. She was an innocent young lassie watching the telly when a
bullet ripped through the wall of her house and entered her head.”
The case was one of many that opened Emma’s eyes to the horror of America’s gun culture.
She added: “That young girl’s case was one of the most upsetting I worked on and it makes me so glad that we don’t have widespread gun ownership in Scotland.
“We had times when we had to move two rival gang members into operating theatres on different floors because you would have the friends and relatives out on the corridors. There would be conversations in the operating room where the staff would be saying we need to put these guys in different ICU units.
“The closest I had been to a gun before moving out there was a BB gun on the farm so it was an eye-opener.
“It really made me realise how lucky we are not to have a huge problem with guns.
“We have violence issues in Scotland and knife crime is too prevalent but guns take things to another level and we need to make sure that sort of weapons culture is never allowed to develop.”
She added: “I helped care for all sorts of patients in America. Another woman I remember had tattoos on her arm from a concentration camp.
“I got talking to her and found out she had survived the Holocaust. I was holding her hand talking to her as she was going under anaesthetic to have her gall bladder removed. All these experiences are things I treasure now.”
Emma was born and raised on a farm near Stranraer, where her father was a dairyman. The family moved to Annan in 1978. She attended Annan Academy before training as a nurse in Dumfries at the Royal College of Nursing and Midwifery.
She worked her way through the ranks in LA, eventually taking charge of an international team of nurses running a minimal invasive surgery unit.
She moved back to Dumfries in 2005
with her husband Robertson, an American university professor, to work for the NHS.
In 2015, she stood for the UK Parliament as an SNP candidate for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale.
She finished second but achieved a huge swing of 27.5 per cent – narrowly losing the seat by only 798 votes.
Then, in 2016, she stood again, this time for the Scottish Parliament, and was elected as a list MSP for South Scotland.
She added: “Being a nurse allows you to listen to folk – and that is something that is very important in politics.
“The public see all the shouting and finger pointing but that’s not really what it is all about. The real work is in the committees and constituencies, talking to people and understanding problems and trying to change things for the better.
“My experience in the last two years has been amazing. Now I am on the health committee, where I feel I can really use my 30 years of experience in nursing.
“It lets me feed into a committee that I have knowledge about and, of course, I understand all the medical terminology.
“I think I am well placed to be a member of the Scottish Parliament and, because of my rural background growing up on a farm, I understand the challenges normal people face in the countryside as well.
“I have had an incredible life experience and now I want to use that to do some good.”