Fiona grew up in a medical family so she was destined to have a career in healthcare. Her mother was a nurse and midwife, her eldest brother trained to be a pharmacist and her father was a rural GP.

“Medicine was part of everyday life for me growing up in rural Hampshire in the 1970s,” remembers Fiona “When my dad was on call our phone would ring and when I was old enough I’d answer the calls taking messages and bleeping dad.” Fiona’s parents inspired her to start her nurse training and once she had, Fiona’s mum decided to return to nursing after she’d stopped her career to have children.

Initially working in London after qualifying, Fiona gained vital experience before moving back to Hampshire to take up a role in a cardio-thoracic unit in Southampton. In the late 1990s, a new nursing role, the cardiac nurse practitioner, was created to undertake roles traditionally seen as being done by either doctors or nurses, enabling patients to experience seamless care.

“I was one of the first to be trained as a nurse practitioner,” explains Fiona “it was an exciting new role and I got to medically examine patients and prepare them for surgery.” Fiona enjoyed training up other nurse practitioners and worked in clinical education for a while, also teaching other healthcare workers vital and necessary skills.

She moved to a Matron role and then to Head of Nursing before taking up her most senior nursing role to date as Deputy Director of Nursing and Midwifery at Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Fiona has been running for about 5 years and completed her first marathon in 2019 and has two more lined up for 2020.

“It’s the Year of the Nurse and Midwife this year and I’m 50, so I thought why not! I put my name in for the 2020 London and Chicago Marathon ballots, not thinking that I’d be successful at all. But my name was chosen for the London Marathon and a few weeks later, I found out I was running the Chicago Marathon too!”

Fiona has never done any marathon fundraising before but as she has two marathons to run this year she thought about running in aid of Cavell Nurses’ Trust.

“I’ve been really lucky in my career working with inspirational people and as part of my role as a senior nurse I provide pastoral guidance to nursing colleagues. At times I meet nursing staff who are struggling whether it’s through illness or personal financial problems.

“Some of these caregivers have things going on in their personal lives that mean that for them to come in to work and deliver amazing care is actually very hard for them. Sometimes you don’t know what people are carrying with them when they walk through the door to start a shift and they still deliver amazing care, leaving their own troubles behind them. To have somewhere for them to turn to like Cavell Nurses’ Trust is very important.”

Fiona’s marathon training is going well and she is sticking to her training plan,

“I do four runs a week and one Cross training session to work on core strength. I’m putting my body through a lot so I hope that I stay injury-free. As part of the training plan, there’s what you call a ‘taper’ built in. In the week or two right before the marathon, you wind down your training and try to rest your body ahead of the big day. But all you want to do is go for a run so it’s hard to be patient and have a rest.

“The thing I’m most looking forward to is finishing! I’m running London in April and Chicago in October and when they are over, I will have run three marathons in just over a year!”

Support Fiona’s double marathon challenge here