Faith Survant is a staff nurse in the D4 intensive care unit. She joined CUH in 2004 after training in the Philippines and working for 10 years in Saudi Arabia. Here Faith tells us more about the 20 years she has been at CUH.
What is your name and your role in our hospitals?
My name is Faith L. Survant and I work as a staff nurse in the D4 intensive care unit (ITU)
What do you enjoy most about your role?
Ever since I became a nurse, I like bedside nursing the most.
The interactions with patients, colleagues and relatives always make the work more interesting.
Tell us a bit about your career and your CUH journey.
I earned my Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree from the University of Santo Tomas (UST) back home in the Philippines. I worked for two years in the Lung Centre in the Philippines and I also worked for 10 years in Saudi Arabia; five years in King Khalid Military Hospital in Hafar Al Batin and five years in Al Hada Armed Forces Hospital in Taif.
I had just finished my contract from the previous hospital I worked for, I went back home to the Philippines to have a short period of rest before starting job hunting again when I saw an advert in the newspaper that an employer from CUH was going to do interviews in the Philippines for nurses at CUH. I didn’t hesitate to attend and after passing the written exam and series of interviews one after another (three interviews in total) I was one of the few nurses selected for the job… Hurray!!!
It was a cold day in February 2004 when I finally came to the UK and started working at CUH.
I started off as a staff nurse on ward D7 for one year which, at that time, was purely a surgical ward, mainly hepato-pancreato-biliary (HPB) surgery (surgery of the liver, pancreas, and gallbladder) and upper gastrointestinal surgeries. I then moved to an intermediate dependency area (IDA) which was considered as a high dependency unit (HDU) of surgical wards (I'm very proud to have been one of the pioneers). I remained as a staff nurse here for 17 years until after the COVID pandemic when the IDA was merged to the JVF intensive care unit, where I currently work.
Why you like working at CUH?
Being a huge and diverse hospital, as well as a teaching hospital, I meet a lot of people from different cultures and backgrounds. CUH also offers a lot of teachings and study days and opportunities to better myself and my career.
What does a usual day look like for you?
Working in the intermediate dependency area and intensive care unit as a nurse, I have learnt to always come to work prepared for anything that might happen. Always expect the unexpected so to speak. It might be quiet in the morning then you will be running around like a “headless chicken” in the afternoon or vice versa. No day at work is ever the same. And that is the exciting part of my job. I don’t know what is in store for me until the moment I enter the unit.
Tell us about a case study/experience at CUH that really stands out to you.
Nothing will ever stand out to me more than the experience I had during the COVID pandemic. I guess it will forever be in my mind when all the staff worked so hard to eradicate the virus and overpower it. And winning that fight as to a certain extent it is behind us now.
What is the most notable thing that has changed in your profession/career in the years you’ve worked at CUH?
When I first came to England, I was following up all my papers with UKCC and a few months later it became the Nursing and Midwife Council (NMC). Talking to my colleagues about this, they were staring at me with blank faces saying they have not heard of UKCC. Seems to me like UKCC has existed during the stone age.
Funny as it may seem, that is how long I have been working here at CUH.