No one taking part in Woldingham’s latest career panel on Tuesday 1 March can have been left in any doubt about the huge breadth of career opportunities the healthcare sector has to offer. Our panellists came from the fields of speech and language therapy, nursing, dentistry, mental health care and medicine. Though these terms are familiar, our guests’ talks covered experience in oral maxillofacial surgery, clinical nurse management, advising the Department of Health on policy, specialising in eating and drinking disorders, autism, and much more. They also talked about other specialist professions they collaborate with.

The audience of students, parents and staff asked the panel a variety of questions, including how mentally challenging it is to work with people who are struggling and how to cope with losing a patient.  The answers from our panellists were powerful and poignant and reflected common themes of the session: healthcare is a vocation; kindness and care underpin the sector; and resilience is crucial.

We are very grateful to our panellists for their advice and insights: alumnae Kate Bergbauer (1981), Ilsa Curry (2018) and Sparkle Sparshott (2020), Christy Ng (2014), Woldingham parent Caroline Twitchett and friend of Woldingham Hannah Raffield.

To view a recording of this event, please click here. (Passcode: 895X3XJ^) Forward to 22mins in for the start.