{"id":19473,"date":"2023-03-29T16:04:49","date_gmt":"2023-03-29T15:04:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/kbs-news-events\/?p=19473"},"modified":"2025-11-05T14:23:19","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T14:23:19","slug":"i-loved-academia-so-much-i-decided-to-become-a-lecturer-myself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/kbs-news-events\/2023\/03\/i-loved-academia-so-much-i-decided-to-become-a-lecturer-myself\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I loved academia so much, I decided to become a lecturer myself!’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kelly Sawyer has just become a Senior Lecturer in Midwifery following her graduation from MSc in Healthcare Management<\/a> in 2022. She tells us how undertaking her master’s led to her decision to pursue this new challenge.<\/p>\n

What was your dream job as a child, and what is your dream job now?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I always knew I wanted to work in healthcare, but it took me a while to find my niche. Pregnancy and childbirth have always fascinated me, so midwifery was a natural fit.<\/p>\n

Why did you choose the Kent Business School?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kent Business School allowed me the flexibility to study part-time, so I could continue to work alongside studying. There was also flexibility within the course, so there were plenty of opportunities to make the content relevant to my sphere of practice.<\/p>\n

What are some of your favourite memories, achievements and experiences?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I really enjoyed my research project at the end of the course – I was able to explore a topic that was interesting to me, that was also relevant to a service improvement project I was spearheading at my Trust. Carrying out my own research was a huge learning curve, but incredibly enjoyable.<\/p>\n

What have you been up to since graduating?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I loved academia so much and missed it so much when the course was over that I decided to become a lecturer myself! I\u2019ve just started as a Senior Lecturer in Midwifery and am very excited for a new challenge.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What does your role involve? What do you like about it the most, and what are the most challenging aspects?<\/strong><\/p>\n

My role as a Deputy Consultant Midwife involved spending time working on service and quality improvements, working clinically as an expert practitioner, and developing myself to become a Consultant Midwife of the future. I like the role because it gives me the opportunity to view services through a different lens, and also allows me to impart my own knowledge and skills in order to improve care for families across the board.<\/p>\n

How do you apply the knowledge and skills you gained during your studies in your job, and what career advice would you give students and fellow alumni?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The course was invaluable for me in understanding and improving my leadership style, and in strengthening my work in service improvement. It also enabled me to gain a more general overview of healthcare services, and to understand how maternity services fit into the bigger picture of the NHS.<\/p>\n

What are your future plans \/ aspirations?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m really hoping to publish my master\u2019s dissertation in a midwifery journal this year, and I\u2019m also hoping to expand on those findings and work towards a PhD in the future. I\u2019m excited to see where a career in education takes me and look forward to helping to shape the hearts and minds of the midwives of the future.<\/p>\n

What advice would you give to current students doing your course?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I would advise current students to look beyond your own scope of practice and see how you can learn from other disciplines. I initially struggled to open my mind to other possibilities, but there\u2019s so much I was able to take from the course that could be applied to my role, even when it didn\u2019t seem obvious at first.<\/p>\n

Kelly studied MSc Healthcare Management at Kent Business School. Find out more about the course, here.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kelly Sawyer has just become a Senior Lecturer in Midwifery following her graduation from MSc in Healthcare Management in 2022. She tells us how undertaking … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79181,"featured_media":19966,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[177066,263886,124],"tags":[261745,199959],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/kbs-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19473"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/kbs-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/kbs-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/kbs-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/79181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/kbs-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19473"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/kbs-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19473\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23280,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/kbs-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19473\/revisions\/23280"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/kbs-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/kbs-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/kbs-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/kbs-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}