Virginia Ngugi is a registered paediatric nurse with 7 years’ experience in nursing children. She was born in Kiambu County in the Central province of Kenya. After graduating as a Kenya Registered Community Health Nurse from Consolata Nursing School - Mathari in Nyeri in 2010, she completed a higher national diploma in Kenya Registered Paediatric Nurse at the Gertrude’s Institute of Child Health in 2015. She has been working in the surgical ward at Gertrude’s Children’s Hospital in Nairobi from September 2010 and also carries the responsibility of quality assurance in the unit. In 2016 she was awarded a VITOL Bursary as part of the African Paediatric Fellowship Programme, and started the clinical Master of Nursing in Child Nursing at UCT.

The biggest lesson that Virginia has learnt through the two year Master of Nursing in Child Nursing programme has been the importance of speaking up and making yourself heard as nurse practitioner. This lesson is essential for her new role at Gertrude’s Institute of Child Health where she is hoping to assume the role of coordinator within a division of the Clinical Governance. At Gertrude’s this division is called “Infection Control and Quality Assurance”.

Virginia believes that having effective competency in communication, research, leadership, and education is key to leading practice change as an Advanced Practice Nurse. Through the MNCN course, Virginia is certain that she is well-equipped to take on any new role and to develop strategies to teach and train others. She also plans on using research and evidence to help improve the policy and clinical practice on the ground in her healthcare setting.