Sarah Dsouza gained her bachelor’s degree from Manipal College of Nursing, one of India’s top universities.
She then came to the UK and completed her Master’s in Healthcare Management before entering the nursing profession working in a care setting.
She said: “I was hired as a Care Assistant, then they took me on as a Registered Nurse and I was quickly promoted to Senior Nurse, and I started to also do the job of a Clinical Educator.”
“I always wanted to teach, and I started applying to universities to just try and give it a go,” said Sarah. “There are many people from India working as nurses in the NHS but not many people from India lecturing nurses.”
Sarah started applying for roles at universities around the UK and found she was in high demand; she was offered four jobs in quick succession, choosing Worcester as her new home.
“The day I came to the interview everybody was so nice,” she said. “The person who interviewed me, the person who took me to the interview room, the person who called me to offer the job, they were so nice and so polite that I thought I could feel at home here”.
Now, Sarah is spending time teaching the people who’ll go on to serve as nurses on wards across our region and beyond.
“I remember when I gave my first class here, after the lecture there were around five students from India who stayed back after class and said, ‘we didn’t know we could do this in the UK!’, I said ‘yes! You can if you want!’”
She said: “It feels so nice to see that someone is looking up to you as an inspiration, and it feels incredible to be a part of their life and part of their goals as well. I look forward to making a lot of difference in the students’ lives.”
While Sarah is now part of a dedicated and highly skilled team of lecturers delivering training and education to the next generation of nurses, she is already thinking about the next steps for her own learning and development.
“I hope to do a PhD soon,” she said. “I haven’t decided because there’s a lot of things to plan in life, but I’m definitely getting a doctorate within the next five years, and I’ll be staying at the University of Worcester because they do have the facilities I’ll need to work and study.”