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Kim's bike
mishap delays Renal farewell
Kim Nixon, centre, with Dr Chris Kingswood and
renal colleagues at her farewell party
K IM NIXON’S farewell
to her colleagues in the renal unit should have taken place at the time of her
official retirement, last September.
But last June she had a
serious cycle accident which, she says, left her needing the assistance of the
dental and medical fraternity to put her back together again.
Last month she was able to
return for her much delayed retirement party, where renal consultant Dr Chris
Kingswood referred to her as "the co-founder of the unit" set up 25
years ago.
Kim regards that compliment as
"rather generous", but she was in fact in at the birth of unit. It was
started by the then Dr Tony Trafford in what Kim describes as "a Dickensian
attic," the old Donald Hall ward.
Actually her nursing career
began in 1955 when she earned just £7 a month living in. After qualifying she
worked in Los Angeles and Cambridge, had time off to care for her two children
and lived in Canada for awhile before deciding to restart her NHS career.
This began in A&E in 1974,
then she moved to renal "in the interests of broadening her
experience". Her intention was to stay for just two years. But, she says,
"I got addicted".
"Renal nursing was the
speciality to offer nurses an extended role: working in close co-operation with
the medical team and the authority to make decisions and undertake procedures
normally performed by doctors."
Over the years, her
responsibilities have included assisting in the planning and commissioning of a
new home dialysis department (being appointed sister of the unit was especially
rewarding for her, she says), two dialysis satellite units at Bexhill and
Worthing and the new renal unit currently under construction. She has also done
four stints as acting renal care centre manager.
"The future of the renal
unit looks bright," she says. "A new unit, becoming a teaching
hospital, and the opportunity for all our nurses on the unit to obtain the
specialist renal course ‘in house’.
"One of the reasons I
came to the renal unit was the promise of a new permanent unit. It has
taken twenty-five years to fulfil this promise (there have been many false
starts!)
"My one regret is that I
shall not be there to share this experience."
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The Royal Sussex County Hospital, Brighton