Hello!

I thought I would use my first post to tell you a bit about myself. I am a CT radiographer currently working at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital. I have been in the CT department for around 4 years now, which has flown by! I currently live close to Norwich city centre, with my boyfriend and cat, and travel to work most days by a beautiful Honda Shadow motorcycle. I spend my free time mostly drawing and illustrating, which is my favourite hobby, but I also love to read and play board games. I also have helped out with the Norwich Soup Movement, the local soup kitchen, on numerous occasions, and look forward to helping out more soon, now that Covid-19 numbers are dropping.

For the past three years, on top of working full time, I have been self funding my Masters Degree in Forensic Radiography. I remembered doing a presentation on this subject as a student, and it always fascinated me. I should complete this in May 2021, and I have high hopes to be involved in this type of scanning in the future. It captures my attention because it is so different to clinical work, but you can still draw on all your experiences. It is also very exciting, and humbling, to be able to piece together a person’s last moments, which can be used to give a family peace of mind, or get justice for an non-accidental death. Who wouldn’t want to be a part of that?!

Finally, I want to say that this past year has been really tough. The pandemic has brought out the best and worst in people, and I am looking forward to hopefully gaining some normality soon. Working on the front line at this time was; scary, frustrating, confusing, chaotic, heart-breaking and exhausting. We have had amazing support from people around the country, conversely we have suffered vitriol from those that deny the virus exists. Throughout this we carried on, putting ourselves at risk, even when we devastatingly lost colleagues. I am incredibly proud of everything we have achieved, and I am incredibly proud of my co-workers. For us though, the next few months or longer will also be very tough, as we have a huge backlog of cancelled outpatient scans that were put on the back burner due to the virus. This is going to be a really busy and difficult time, but I know we will get through it with the same support as before.