Wanicha Pungchompoo Doctorate in Clinical Practice, December 2013
4th year student
Hi, I'm Wanicha Pungchompoo and I studied Doctorate in Clinical Practice within Health Sciences at the University of Southampton.
I chose Southampton because of the University’s reputation in Health Sciences and its renowned Palliative and End of Life Care Research Group. When I return to Thailand I plan to use the knowledge I’ve gained here to help improve the quality of life for my patients.
I came here because I specifically wanted to work with Health Sciences' academics that have extensive knowledge in palliative and end-of-life care. I felt that their experience would translate well for my patients in Thailand who are unable to pay for kidney disease treatment.
When I return to Thailand, where I work as a nursing instructor in the Faculty of Nursing at Chiang Mai University, I plan to develop a similar end-of-life care group. My aim for this group is for it to specifically focus on renal disease patients managing without dialysis.
I've had extremely good supervision here which has really helped open my mind to the meaning of palliative care. It's given me the opportunity to develop new modules in my own country and help improve the quality of life for my patients.
The connections I've made here with researchers in other countries I believe will be invaluable in the future.