The final batch of Dundee University winter graduations have taken place.
Hundreds of students have been getting diplomas this week, and on Friday it was the turn of dentistry and nursing students to don their gowns and head to the Caird Hall.
Among them was Fife mother Charlotte Scotland, 30, who was inspired to study nursing after her son was hospitalised with a kidney condition.
As well as receiving her BSc in Adult Nursing, the Burntisland woman has been crowned the university’s School of Nursing and Health Sciences student nurse of the year.
She turned her back on six years of working in a law firm to become a healthcare professional.
After watching her son, Oscar, treated by staff at a children’s hospital in Edinburgh during the early stages of his life, Mrs Scotland said the decision to swap law for medicine was an easy one to make.
She said: “We spent a lot of time in hospital with him and it was heartbreaking to deal with. We felt so helpless, but the staff at the hospital were incredible and made a difficult time a lot easier.
“It made me realise that I wanted to give something back. It inspired me to go to university and help others in the same way.”
“It was a big step to take. I had two children and I had bills to pay but I knew this was something I wanted to do.
“I’ve received tremendous support from my husband and family. I couldn’t have done it without them.”
Undertaking her three-year course at the university’s campus in Kirkcaldy, Mrs Scotland took part in the General Practice Nursing pilot programme, learning the skills needed to work as a nurse in local surgeries.
Shehas since taken up a position at a surgery in Crossgates, a role that gives her one-to-one contact with patients, which she says was a key motivation behind becoming a nurse.
She said: “It was hard having to study at weekends when my husband was entertaining the kids, but I kept telling myself that everything I was doing was to make their lives better.
“Oscar is now seven and my daughter Holly is 12 and I wanted them to see that you achieve things through hard work.
“Now, every night when I travel home from work I can say to myself that I have helped to make somebody’s life better. That is such an amazing feeling and has made all of that effort worthwhile.”
