Pamela Davidson

BSc (Hons) Nursing, 1991

You’ve worked in infection control for some time, what does that area of nursing involve?

It’s extremely high up the national agenda right now and it’s embedded with the anti-microbial resistance agenda and patient safety. They all integrate and work side by side.

Our day-to-day role for NHS Tayside involves advising on patient care and infection prevention and control precautions that clinical teams need to adopt. 

We also carry out monitoring and surveillance, auditing, provide education and carry out research. 

It’s a never ending exciting list I suppose!

When did you decide that infection control was the area you wanted to focus on?

When I qualified and went into post, it actually wasn’t such a popular speciality. There wasn’t the widespread knowledge of infection, prevention and control that there is now and there were only a few nurses specialising in it in Tayside.

I worked in Royal Victoria Hospital in Dundee at the time and some of my colleagues had suggested that this was the correct career direction for myself. 

It seems as though your Abertay degree really helped you get to where you are?

Definitely. What we do is very much evidence based work. If I didn’t have my BSc Hons degree early on I probably wouldn’t be sitting where I am now.

What advice do you have for our current students?

Make sure you make the most of the experience. Because it’s a smaller university it’s easier to integrate. Make the most of the day-to-day opportunities you have as a student and use the time and support lecturers and other staff can give you.

What would you say to anyone considering studying nursing?

It’s a very rewarding post. It can be challenging and you’re always learning every day. It’s such a dynamic time for nursing right now and the way we’re able to change and mould the posts as time goes on is exciting. It’s always a great time to become a nurse, but I think right now that’s even more true.

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