Nursing runs in Leo Pangan's family.
He is one of the trust's few male nurses.
Leo, 48, works in outpatients at the Cumberland Infirmary.
He has worked at the hospital for the last two and a half years.
Leo was successful in gaining a place on the national Windrush Leadership Programme offered by Florence Nightingale Foundation. The programme offers career development opportunities to recognise the contribution ‘Windrush’ nurses and midwives across 70 years of the NHS.
Colleagues say he is very modest, kind, caring and totally patient centred.
He came to Cumbria 14 years ago from the Philippines.
He has a wife and two grown up children, who are studying at university.
He said: “I qualified in 1993 and will have worked at the hospital for three years this June.
“Nursing runs in my family. My sister and brother-in-law are nurses.”
Before joining NCIC, Leo worked for a private care home for 12 years.
He said: “Nursing in the UK is a lot different to the Philippines. There you get to work on different wards. Here you generally stay on the same ward.
“There’s no difference really being a male nurse. You don’t necessarily have the same conversations as men often talk about different topics but I don’t get treated any different. People are more open minded now and more accepting. If patients aren’t comfortable with some of the clinical procedures I have to perform they can request a female nurse.
Leo loves the "interaction with patients". He said: "I love helping patients get well and how they appreciate what we are doing for them. These are the important parts of my career. They are priceless. It’s the little things that matter."
He added: "My hope for the future of nursing is more recognition and for nursing to become a more integral part of the community. I sometimes feel nurses don’t get enough credit for what they do.”
EMILY JACKSON, APPRENTICE NURSING ASSOCIATE
Emily Jackson is an apprentice nursing associate at NCIC.
She describes a typical day before the Coronavirus pandemic.
She said: “A typical shift would be a 12 hour day or night. When the shift begins I get a full handover off the previous shift about the patients that I will be caring for during the shift with the registered nurse.
“Once handover is finished I go and introduce myself to the patients that I will be looking after. I think this is so important so the patients know who I am and so that they can call me by my name if they need any assistance or help.
“During the shift the staff nurse delegates jobs to me as the apprentice nursing associate. “My role includes helping patients with washing and meals, recording clinical observations, admitting the patients on to our assessment unit, communicating with staff members including doctors, speaking to the patients’ families and helping with the nursing end of bed notes.”
Emily was recently filmed and interviewed in a new campaign for Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership designed to attract talent to the county and overcome Cumbria's growing skills emergency.
Emily who works on the emergency admissions ward at the Cumberland Infirmary in Carlisle started on her new career path last year.
She said: “I can’t see myself working anywhere else other than Cumbria. I love it here.”