In profile: Sophie Davis

Can you tell us about your role and current projects?

I am the College nurse. I work across the whole campus from the ELC to Year 12.

Thankfully I have some great colleagues in the reception areas who assist with the first aid which, as you can imagine, is a huge job with over 2000 students. Apart from the general day-to-day first aid, illnesses and dispensing of daily medications I also am busy arranging first aid information and kits for excursions and camps.

I also manage the incident reports with our Safety Officer and am a representative on the Work Health and Safety committee.

What do you like best about your current role?

I have always enjoyed working with young people through my nursing career. Here at Radford, I love that I get to see them when they are well and not only when they are injured or ill. I am passionate about health promotion and really believe that if we instil healthy habits into our young people, they will be more likely to carry these habits into their adult years and hopefully lead healthy lives!

I really enjoy the times when some students just drop in to say hello, maybe with a funny story or two to share – preferably not in class time though!

What did you do before joining the Radford community?

I started my nursing career in the wilds of Moruya Hospital which, despite being small, was a great place to learn on the run. There were no resident doctors there, so I got to work with some amazing nurses who gave me some solid grounding.

From there I went to the UK and worked in Bone Marrow Transplant and Haematology, which was very rewarding and heartbreaking in equal measure. While there I realised that I needed to hone my skills a bit better in emergency situations and, although I had witnessed a small number of cardiac arrests, I had never done CPR so I asked for a sabbatical in the emergency department. Instead of the sabbatical, I was offered a job and I stayed there for five years. I didn’t move far after this as I went on to work in the minor injuries unit which was a nurse-led unit and I discovered a love for orthopaedics.

After having children I decided I had had enough of the wet of Yorkshire in the UK and moved back to Australia. I started working at the Walk-in Centre, which I loved. Initially I was based in Belconnen but then moved to the Tuggeranong clinic. After doing this for many years, commuting from Wamboin, I started to tire of shift work and the late finishes so started searching around for something with better hours, health promotion work and young people … The rest is history!

What do you enjoy outside Radford?

I have two boys, aged 8 and 11, who keep me endlessly entertained and busy running around to all their activities. My favourite thing to do with them is to go on long crazy bike rides or to go exploring around with them on foot or dragging them out on a Saturday morning Parkrun.

I also really enjoy cooking – not the day-to-day ‘what’s for dinner, Mum?’ but the cooking where you find a new recipe and, sometimes, it takes an age to put together but time is not an issue (this is rare in my life but I love it!).

I love animals and have a couple of dogs, cats, a rabbit and my beloved chooks (well, they are not laying at the moment so although they are still loved, I do give them a glare every now and then and tell them to get on with it!). I love that Miri is at school now as there is nothing better than patting a dog when things get a bit too much, if you ask me!