Re: Spring 2013 | Page 20

represents patients in court Melanie Minter left nursing to become a solicitor and now helps patients injured by negligence Former nurse “For as long as I can remember I wanted to be a nurse. I’m not sure where it came from, only that I had this strong determination that that’s what I would do with my life. I worked in my dad’s DIY shop from the age of 10, lifting peat into cars and cutting chicken wire. As a teenager I remember customers assuming I wouldn’t know about gas fittings and I used to enjoy proving them wrong. I wasn’t much above average at school but I shocked everyone by getting an A in my History A-level. My history teacher talked very fast and I made up my own shorthand to get everything down. I still use it in conferences. After college I applied to various schools of nursing and got a student nurse post at St Bartholomew’s Hospital. It was January 1981 when I started my three year training in the shadow of St Paul’s Cathedral. The training included a placement at a rundown old hospital in Hackney. I was posted to the geriatric ward