Miss Hannah Pickard

Hannah Pickard got her BSc Physical Therapy from the University of Alberta, Canada, in 2003. Her career has been almost exclusively in Paediatrics. She's been very fortunate to work in a number of different countries including: Canada, Australia, Saudi Arabia, UK, Thailand, Laos, Qatar and Egypt. She's also tried different types of roles within Paediatrics such as inpatients, outpatients, special schools, mainstream schools, voluntary/low resourced, INGO and community. Working in all these settings has given Hannah rich life experience to draw upon as well as made her adaptable and flexible to different conditions. Her most recent role has been as a Children's Physiotherapist at a Child Development Centre called the Hackney Ark where she works with children, young people and their families from newborn to 18 years of age who have neurological disabilities. Hackney Ark is part of Homerton Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust. In 2018, Hannah returned to university to get a Masters degree. She studied Multidisciplinary Innovation at Northumbria University in Newcastle. The programme is within the Faculty of Design. This gave Hannah a unique set of skills in problem solving which complement any role.

Reason for applying for the scheme

Hannah has been concerned about the impact we are having on the environment for some time. Hannah's dad is a veterinarian in a rural area in Alberta where she grew up. This part of Canada is very focused on animal agriculture. She's interested in Planetary Health and worried about zoonotic spillover events and antibiotic resistance. She's made changes where possible in her own daily life - e.g. minimising the use of plastic, changing banks and eating a plant-based diet, to name a few. She tries to nudge people in her workplace towards more sustainable actions. Her final project for her Masters degree was around 'greening the operating theatre'. Her small group worked alongside Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare Anaesthesia Fellow at the time. Hannah's group used design-led strategies in workshops to engage the staff at the hospital including anaesthetists, ODPs and scrub nurses. They completed patient journeys from the ward, anaesthetic room, theatre and recovery room, which gave an insightful glimpse into something that isn't often witnessed end to end by the same members of staff, nor the patient who is asleep for most of it. The group also visited the waste area, which helped them visualise and appreciate the scale of the problem. Hannah's project was just a taster over the course of a few months, but when she read about this fellowship scheme, she felt she had things to contribute and also a lot more to learn. Hannah wants to be a change maker.