User:Jennifersudell

Jennifer Sudell DOB- 05/07/1966 Occupation- Nurse Practitioner Name at Birth- Jennifer Burns Fathers Name- Harold Burns Fathers Occupation- Horticulturalist Jennifer married Dr. Christopher Sudell and had 2 children, this made their combined number of children 5. Rebecca Sudell Martin Peter Sudell Poppy Ocean Sudell Bryony Willow Sudell Harley Bob Sudell

Jennifer was accepted to commence medical training at University but chose to become a nurse instead of a doctor, citing length of training and lack of money as the reason behind her decision. Jennifer (Known to friends as Jenny) won a prestigious Nurse of the Year award presented to her by the Royal College of Nursing in London (UK) in 1993 in recognition of her ground breaking work in substance misuse. A back injury during her early nursing years confined Jenny to a wheelchair. Jenny worked alongside her husband (GP Dr Chris Sudell) and Professor John Henry for many years. She is well known in the nursing and GP community as a dedicated and determined Nurse who allowed nothing to stand in her way.

Jenny worked at North Nottinghamshire Public Health in the UK as a clinical nurse specialist in Hepatitis and Drug dependency. She came upon this post "by accident" as she had only been working as a practice nurse at the GP practice for a short period of time. Jenny wrote an article on Hepatitis B vaccination which was published by one of the journals at the time. http://www.internurse.com/cgi-bin/go.pl/library/abstract.html?uid=4507 One day a patient (who was an intravenous heroin user) came to see her to register as a new patient and part of her role was to do what was called a "new patient health check" This involved taking a history, and checking health issues, and documenting baseline information on the practice computer system. During the consultation she found that this patient had never had a Hepatitis B vaccination and so she gave him one. Later she asked the practice manager where it should be documented for audit purposes. The Practice Manager was quite surprised that she hadn't charged the patient for the vaccination because the regulations at the time meant that Hepatitis B vaccinations were classed as a holiday vaccine and therefore patients had to pay for them.

Jenny was quite shocked and said that the patient needed the vaccine as he was in a high risk category, given that he was an injecting drug user and Hepatitis B is a blood bourne virus. The practice manager shrugged it off and told Jenny that if she had a problem with it she should take it up with the Public Health unit. With the full support of Dr Chris Sudell, Jenny did exactly that and was given the post of Clinical Nurse Specialist in Hepatitis and Drug Dependency. Her role involved vaccinating drug dependent patients and their close contacts for free. She located many of the patients in homeless centres, in squats and on the streets. She became well known and respected among the homeless community and among the sex workers and would give health advice and free condoms out as well as offerring vaccinations and blood tests to check for Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C and HIV. She would drive a very old red minibus which would double up as an area to work in when she was out working on the streets with the homeless. It was fully "kitted out" with all the emergency equipment and hand-washing facilities, and everything she needed to undertake her work in this area including a fridge to store the vaccines and a couch to enable her to examine patients. Her husband designed the clinical area inside the bus to enable privacy and a safe working environment for Jenny and her patients.

Jennys tireless campaign to get Hepatitis B vaccination made free for all drug users and their families, and all patients in high risk groups was eventually successful. She worked closely with the help and support of the Drug Action Team and before long the regulations were changed to allow this essential vaccination to be given to those in an at risk" position to obtain vaccination free at the point of delivery. She spoke at many conferences internationally on this topic.

Of course, these days the vaccination is free for everyone and has even become included as a part of the vaccination and immunisation programme for babies.

Her ability to advocate, not only for her patients, but also her colleagues, and her loyalty were what impressed Professor John Henry most about her, and she undertook a lot of research work in the area of gambling addiction. She felt that her work inserting Naltrexone implants into recently detoxed heroin addicted patients was only the tip of the iceberg with regards work with "blockers" and she worked tirelessly with John and her husband Chris to find pharmacological interventions to assist gamblers to kick their habits too, For a long time they worked on the theory that beta blockers could assist with sports gamblers. She also worked on research that showed that cannabis blockers, and benzodiazipine blockers could assist in the treatment of many gambling issues.

She was hit very hard by the death of Professor John Henry. He had "adopted" Jenny as his niece and they were well known for their humorous banter during international conferences. Jenny was also well know for her "mad hair" which was dyed bizarre colours for conferences and events where she was required to speak publicly. John and Jenny were in the process of writing a book together on Naltrexone implants and different addictions when he died unexpectedly in London.

Jenny continued to work alongside her husband as a Nurse Practitioner, Practice Manager Clinical Teacher, Acupuncturist and Hypnotherapist. She built a large extension to their GP surgery and incorporated a healthy eating kitchen, (where patients would learn to cook and then serve their efforts to the weekly luncheon club for the elderly held at the GP surgery) a time bank, fruit trees in the gardens, toy library, art exhibitions and the Next Door project which addressed mental health issues. She then set up The Lifeback Clinic which was a private addiction clinic with her husband. She has lectured all over the world on her chosen subject at various international addiction conferences. Jenny moved, with her family to Western Australia, and then onto New South Wales in 2007 In Western Australia she worked as a Practice Nurse and Practice Manager with her GP husband in an area that had no medical care. Together they built a state of the art dispensing GP practice that revolutionised health care in a remote region of Western Australia. Jenny had to train staff, set up and install computer systems for the pharmacy and the practice and work at the hospital following her completion of an X-ray operators course. More recently she has become an advocate of alternatively abled nurses, and has returned to study to complete her qualifications in professional counselling.

She is currently working as a Practice Nurse, but she still advocates for alternatively abled nurses and specialises in work with patients who have mental health issues.

She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine She is also a Member of the Australian institute of Professional Counsellors, (2011) She is a Registered Nurse (1990) with a Diploma in Nursing (1993) and a Nurse Practitioner. In 2011 she gained a Bachelors Degree in Nursing from the University of South Australia. She worked as an independent Registered Nurse and teacher specializing in substance misuse, giving talks and lectures on her areas of interest as well as providing counselling services, advice and consultancy. She also works as a Practice Nurse alongside her GP husband. (Dr Chris Sudell) She has recently set up an internet forum for nurses working in general practice with the aim of sharing information and experiences and being able to support nurses who work in rural and remote areas. She has set up another similar forum for community and primary health care workers with the same objectives including sharing resources. She felt that a forum that would allow people in primary care to address questions to a mixed group from diverse backgrounds would improve care and enable a better understanding of roles and responsibilities on the front line, ultimately leading to improvements in care outcomes for patients.