The Practice Education team

Liavel Vargas – Practice Develoment Lead (Postgraduate Education)

Lia is a Registered Adult Nurse with clinical experience in emergency medicine, cardiology and neuro theatres. Lia started her nursing career as a cadet nurse in Lincoln, and completed her nursing studies at the University of Nottingham in 2011.

Lia’s passion about education, compassionate leadership, staff wellbeing and supporting learners led her to securing a role as a Preceptorship Support nurse in 2014 and is now leading the Practice Education team at NUH.

In 2019, Lia had the opportunity to become a Health Education England – East Midlands Professional Fellow, and led a project focussing on career development and retention of nurses in Nottinghamshire across health and social care settings. During this time, she had the opportunity to contribute towards national digital initiatives on career development, including the RCN careers website. She also promoted the role of the nurse to create a positive perception of the profession amongst the younger generation through working and visiting local schools in Nottingham and through social media, as part of the NursingNow campaign.

Lia is an active member of the East Midlands Preceptorship Group and a committee member of the Clinical Nurse Education Network (CNENet). These groups have a shared desire to provide a good quality education and support for current, new, and future nurses in the UK. Additionally, the groups aim to raise the profile of nurse educators in the UK.

As an immigrant from the Philippines and a daughter of an international nurse, Lia is passionate about supporting BAME staff and firmly believes in the importance of inclusive leadership. Furthermore, she believes that every newly registered nurse deserves a thorough and robust education, preceptorship programme and pastoral support including clinical supervision and coaching.

Rosalind Healey - Practice Development Lead (Undergraduate Education)

Roz is a registered adult nurse, with clinical experience of caring for a variety of post-operative patients in theatre Recovery at NUH since 2010. She worked in the Theatre Education and Development team for 5 years, and qualified as a practice teacher from The University of Nottingham in 2018. Roz then completed a two year lecturer secondment at Nottingham Trent University, designing and running a Post-Registration BSc/MSc course for theatre nurses to become qualified anaesthetic practitioners. 

She currently works as the Institute Practice Development Lead for Undergraduate education. Her passion is for engaging students and staff in the experience of learning and developing together. 

Albert Amagyei - Practice Educator

Albert Amagyei is a registered adult nurse (3 years) with clinical experience in colorectal, HPB, vascular surgery. Albert started his nursing career in Ghana in a diabetes emergency ward. Here in the UK, Albert started his nursing career at NUH on E14, colorectal ward. Albert studied for his BSc. nursing education at KNUST, Ghana and MSc. Advanced Nursing at the University of Nottingham.

Albert has been passionate about diabetes care. Most of his patients had poorly controlled diabetes. Albert was able to secure a Commonwealth Scholarship to study at University of Nottingham where he developed an insulin infusion protocol for poorly controlled diabetes and completed a dissertation titled ‘the effects of a community health worker (CHW) diabetes self-management education and support (DSMES) on type 2 diabetes patients.-a systematic review and meta-analysis’.

In November 2021, Albert had the opportunity as a BAME member to participate in a clinical academic program. This also involved a leadership development module based on Florence Nightingale Foundation Wind rush programme, one of the pillars of advancing nursing (leadership) which is necessary in improving his personal development through learning. In addition, Albert has been empowered to conduct inclusive and innovative research such as a patient/staff focused innovative project, which will command the confidence of patients and staff as the research reflects population health, and care needs, which may lead to improved outcomes.

Currently, Albert has an interest to pursue PhD in transforming nursing education, as he is passionate about improving care and providing evidence-based practice and education to our learners in practice. Albert has recently secured a PhD studentship at Coventry University to drive this passion.

Moreover, Albert enjoys his current role as a practice educator as primarily providing pastoral support to newly qualified nurses and student nurses. He has the opportunity to influence learning and practice by providing new learners with a robust preceptorship programme and on-going support.

Aleena Elezabeth Joy - Practice Educator

Aleena is a Registered Adult Nurse with experience in acute medicine and elderly medicine. Aleena is an overseas trained nurse, who came to the UK with her aspirations to work in one of the most renowned organisations in the world, the NHS. Aleena is a Bachelor’s Degree graduate, which she acquired from India, and was the best outgoing student from her college of the cohort 2010-2015. After moving to the UK, she found her passion in improving quality of care for patients with dementia, especially around evidence-based timely education for the healthcare staff looking after dementia patients. She was honoured to receive a DAISY Award for providing exceptional quality care to her patients.

Along with her clinical responsibilities as a Staff Nurse, Aleena was always passionate about educating and supporting the learners in practice, which unveiled a new passion for her in nursing education. She has undergone the Resuscitation Link Nurse Training Programme, and is an authorised assessor to deliver AHLS mandatory training to registered nurses. Due to her aspirations in education, she is now practicing as an Institute Practice Educator for Postgraduate Nursing in the Institute of Care Excellence. She absolutely cherishes her role as a Practice Educator in supporting Newly Qualified Nurses, Return to Practice nurses, and Nursing Associates, in their Preceptorship journey, offering them pastoral support and supervision.

Aleena is ambitious about evidenced based practice and the innovations in healthcare to enrich the quality of care patients receive, and she has successfully completed her Nightingale Fellow Project which helped her to steer towards this goal and to advance in her leadership journey. Her Patient Quality Improvement Project on importance of pain assessment for dementia patients and the eminence of educating healthcare personnel in using appropriate pain assessment tools for cognitively impaired, non-communicating patients or patients suffering from dementia and unable to self-report or describe pain. It has gained recognition and appreciation from the Patient and Public Involvement Team, and an astounding opportunity to be involved in the Trust's Dementia Steering and Strategy Group.

Aleena, vice-chairs the Institute Shared Governance Council, and is passionate about bringing changes, facilitative leadership and being an advocate for empowering nursing staff to speak up and have a voice in decision making such as improving and implementing projects for patient and staff wellbeing. She was actively involved in designing a bespoke induction pack for the new starters at the Institute of Care Excellence.

As an International Nurse, Aleena is proud of her roots and is passionate about supporting BAME colleagues in their leadership journey and career development. Furthermore, she is dedicated, and is zealous in supporting her Father in Evangelistic and voluntary charity activities in India, focused to support inadequately-resourced, at risk tribal communities in the rural parts of Orissa, India.

Bindhu Kallumkal - Practice Educator (Undergraduate Education)

Bindhu Kallumkal is the Practice Educator for Undergraduates, specifically for student nurses and apprentice nurses.

Bindhu completed her nursing diploma training in India where she worked for 2 years in paediatrics and intensive care before moving to Saudi Arabia. Here, Bindhu worked in adult critical care and developed professionally, undertaking care of complex patients, but also personally through working with a range of people from diverse backgrounds.

Bindhu came to the UK in 2004 where she gained her NMC registration after completing the overseas nurses programme. Bindhu then joined NUH as a cardiac intensive care nurse which was a huge learning opportunity in terms of understanding trust values and behaviours. Alongside the job, Bindhu obtained the BSc Nursing Degree from the University of Nottingham, and also successfully completed the Advanced Life Support course and became an ALS provider.

Teaching has always been Bindhu’s passion and through completing the Supporting Practice Learning course, learnt how best to support and educate students and newly joining staff to CICU which she put into practice during her role as a student link nurse. Despite facing many obstacles, Bindhu’s beleives her perseverance, and commitment helped her progress to a Deputy Sister position where she effectively led the team and ensured a comfortable working environment. Bindhu’s desire to teach was not completely fulfilled until landing the role as a Practice Educator where she unveiled a new passion towards nursing education whilst being in charge of teaching practices on a larger scale.