A rewarding day talking about research
I`m Alex, a Clinical Research Nurse in the Gynaecology Research Department, where I joined the team in February. The team is made up of midwives, nurses and research practitioners and we are based on the 5th floor of Saint Mary’s Hospital. It`s highly likely you will have seen us in different clinical areas, constantly looking out for volunteers for our research studies or seeing patients that are already part of our studies.
One Saturday morning in May, myself and the team found ourselves in Saint Mary’s Hospital bright and early putting the finishing touches to a research display. It was the Saint Mary’s Recruitment Day and by 10am we were ready! We wanted to embrace every opportunity to spread the knowledge about our department and our midwifery, gynaecology and IVF research. It was my first time at the Open Day, I didn’t know what to expect and I couldn’t contain my excitement. My first task was to go down to the atrium to see what was happening. When I reached ground floor there was a huge queue of candidates waiting to be registered. There was a general sense of enthusiasm from everyone and there was lots of discussion between teams and attendees about the great work that goes on at Saint Mary’s Hospital. I hurried back up to the 5th floor, because I knew the guided tours would soon start and we would have to be ready to present about research. We all knew that, no matter how many people we spoke to, even just discussing the variety of research we do with one person would be beneficial. I could feel the unspoken enthusiasm as the first visitors came through. I was extremely surprised to hear that some people had come as far as London and Scotland to attend the recruitment day. I couldn’t help but feel proud of working at Saint Mary`s Hospital, being able to speak to students nearing the end of their studies as well as qualified midwifes and nurses. 
The event concluded at 2pm after a very successful day. We knew we had reached and planted the seed of research into our future colleagues. A seed that, if welcomed and nurtured as it is here in the Saint Mary`s Hospital in the Gynaecology Research Department and Tommy’s Research Centre, can mean nurses and midwives play an important role in delivering new breakthroughs and improvement to patient care, and I am lucky and grateful to be part of it.
