Things are falling into place for mental health nurse Martina Doherty.

She and 13 other Magee-campus students become Northern Ireland’s first BSc Hons Mental Health Nursing graduates on December 15 at the Millennium Forum in Derry. They are among the first full cohort of nursing students to graduate from Magee since the course started in 2001.

Rounding off her success, Martina took top place on her course, winning the coveted Dawson Award, and has already taken up duties at her new place of employment, Gransha Hospital. Her degree has earned her Staff Nurse grade.

“Everything is just falling into place. I’m really looking forward to nursing in Gransha. I’ve accepted a post in clinic A, one of the acute psychiatric admission wards, and that’s where I did two student placements. Since then, I’ve really wanted to work here,” says Martina who lives in Derry but is originally from Moville, Co Donegal.

After a spell as a nursing auxiliary at Altnagelvin Hospital, she decided to go into full time nursing study as a mature student in 2001. She had left school with Leaving Certificate honours in five subjects, completed a Health and Social Care qualification and then worked in various jobs before travelling in several countries.

Accepted by three universities, she chose the Magee campus at the University of Ulster, where she had completed a Diploma in Addiction Studies in 2001. “It was the first year of the nursing degree at Magee, and besides having the advantage of studying in my own home area, I thought it would be both interesting and challenging to be part of the new mental health graduate programme.”

“At first, I wondered what it would be like studying with people a bit younger than me, but I can honestly say that being a mature student has been an advantage because I’ve been able to bring to it my own life experience,” she said. “Towards the end of the first year, after the common foundation programme, it was announced that we could choose mental health nursing. I was over the moon. Mental health nursing was always my dream.”

Martina obtained first class honours. “I am so delighted with my results. I loved my training but it was very hard work, for all of us, it was full-time and so much more.”

Among those attending the degree ceremony will be Martina’s mother Rosella, sister Elaine, partner Jim and best friend Roisin. “It will be an emotional as well as an exciting day. “I lost my dad almost two years ago, when I was about half-way through the course, and I thought at the time, ‘Well, I’ll finish this for him, more than anything’.”

Winter Graduations 2004

For further information, please contact:

David Young
Telephone: 028 90366074
Email: David Young