My CUH Story – Elaine Chapman

Hello, my name is Elaine and I am the lead advisory nurse for the Cambridge Cancer Research Hospital project. Part of my role is to ensure we co-produce the building with our patients and staff, to make sure everyone’s voice is heard and responded to.

My neuro-difference is that I’m dyslexic. I wasn’t actually diagnosed until I underwent nurse training. When I was very small an optician told my mother that I was clearly dyslexic, but at that time school’s didn’t have the understanding or resources to take this further.

In terms of my life at work, I really love being a nurse and I have a real passion for the patients I work with and I am very committed to making the changes they want to see. However, when I observe other staff members, they seem to get through their work a lot quicker than I do; it takes me longer to read documents and prepare items. Sometimes I have to ask colleagues to check what I’ve written because even if I think I’ve used the right word, I may not have. It’s grammar and spelling where I think I struggle more.

Mathematically I’m not so bad and I think that’s something really important for people to think about. When you meet someone, ask them what their needs are. I’m like any other individual we all have something we can find more difficult than others. As someone with neuro-differences I see we are all different and our needs might develop or remain static depending on our own experiences over time.

A number of years ago I was involved in setting up the cancer assessment unit and we had issues with space, but I could see this was really important to our patient group. We know that if patients with a cancer diagnosis come in via the ED, they are more likely to have delays, they are more likely to be seen by someone who isn’t a cancer specialist and it was something that became really important to me. So I went off on my own and set up an Excel spreadsheet to really look and understand the numbers coming through our day units and then modelled how we could change the length of the days so we could then create the spaces we needed for the cancer assessment unit.

So my dyslexia enables me to perhaps have different thought processes; to say there must be a way we can do this because it’s so important for our patients.

Sometimes there probably is a little bit of independence in me! I will go off and do something individually and then bring it back and say “look, we can do this”, and try to use this to engage other people.

Initially my dyslexia diagnosis was very wearing for me, because you do try to hide the fact that you have this disability. Through school you’re told that perhaps you’re a bit stupid or lazy, so you go into your training and your career thinking this is something I need to hide, I can’t show people that I am struggling so I’m going to have to put in the extra hours.

Over time I do now feel more comfortable; perhaps because of the national dialogue there are more examples of people with neuro-difference out there now, and equally perhaps because I’m more senior in my role. I am quite frank about my dyslexia, which sometimes stops people in their tracks. If someone points out a spelling mistake I say to them, “well actually I’m dyslexic, and thank you for your feedback”.

We all need to be more mindful - slow down a bit and think rather than make an assumption; recognise people’s different strengths and how we are really playing to those; and support people to bring their very best self to work. This applies to everyone. And we should all just be very open and say this is who I am and that’s great.

Despite my dyslexia I’m still here; I’ve overcome some of the obstacles that have been put in my way. In some cases it’s because of my neuro-difference that I’m succeeding and doing so well.