Adult Nursing’s Doreen is one of the new Nursing Times student editors

A Northampton student will use a national platform to highlight issues facing her peers, after being appointed as a guest editor for a leading nursing publication.

Doreen Dube is in the second year of her degree in Adult Nursing at the University of Northampton and has recently become one of six new student editors for the Nursing Times.

The editor posts are an opportunity for nursing students to support others, learn new skills, develop their writing and reflect on their own practice.

The editors will take it in turns over the next year to write the weekly student editor blog and will work with the Nursing Times team to put forward the issues they think matter to the student nurse population.

Of her appointment, Doreen said: “The Nursing Times’ editor gave me a call a few weeks before publicly announcing the new student editors. After hearing the news, I was surprised and didn’t know what to say in response, but I managed to get a few words of gratitude out before the call ended!

“I was thinking about documenting my journey toward being a nurse but wasn’t sure of the right platform to do this. When I heard about the editor posts, I just tried my luck and applied, but I am really excited about the opportunity. It gives me the chance to talk about topics in the nursing field that resonate for myself and my fellow students.

“I’m a bit of an introvert, so I tend to find ways other than talking to tell my stories; writing is a tool I occasionally use to express my thoughts and feelings about topics that interest me, which is another reason I applied for the student editor position. I didn’t really tell anyone I’d applied, but my friends and family are pretty excited as well.”

Doreen’s first blog – the first of seven – will be submitted at the end of this week. She is taking the opportunity to focus on something that many nursing students experience – imposter syndrome.

Imposter syndrome is a psychological state in which individuals doubt their skills, talents or accomplishments and have a persistent fear of being exposed as a ‘fraud’.

Doreen adds: “Anyone can experience this, where you feel you don’t deserve what you are achieving and it’s something I’ve definitely felt. I’m an international student from Zimbabwe and even though I felt I was ready for the course when I started, some of the other students had more experience and I felt a bit ‘in their shade’.

“I felt I didn’t deserve to be on the course because I was not at the same level and also because I was not as knowledgeable about how the healthcare system here works. I felt out of my depth.

“But now I’ve settled in and thanks to some confidence boosting conversations with my lecturers – some of whom have experienced the same things I have – I take a lot more pride in what I’m doing and achieving. I want to use my articles for the Nursing Times as a chance to help other students feel the same sort of pride in what they are doing and help them feel they aren’t alone.”

Find out more about Adult Nursing at the University of Northampton.