This month Body & Soul will highlight the work of three major players in health care who stepped down from their posts last year.

In September, Jennifer Gibson retired as the nurse administrator from Lorraine Rest Home, ending a nursing career of more than 40 years.

In November, Government's Senior Medical Officer Dr. Brenda Davidson stepped down from her post and Bermuda Cancer Centre's Marketing Manager Pauline Girling returned to Canada after working in Bermuda for almost 20 years.

This week Body & Soul features an interview with Mrs Girling who left the Centre very quietly at the end of November.

Question: What's your healthcare background i.e. what did you do before TB Cancer?

Answer: I did not graduate in the healthcare field my background lies in education. I took my teacher's training degree at Southampton University in the UK and taught in a prep school in England initially. When I moved to Canada I worked at Sheridan College just outside Toronto and that role opened up opportunities to move from a classroom setting into workplace education and training guiding large employers such as Ford, GM and Xerox in how to identify the training gaps in their workforce and guiding them into developing training strategies linked to their developing technology needs.

That experience led to an opportunity at Bermuda College in the early 90s and I spearheaded a training and development role at the college, communicating with the business community and subsequently setting up adult training opportunities with the employers in the hospitality industry (in conjunction with the Health Department) the Police Service and the banking industry.

But my interest in the healthcare industry really peaked after seven years spent as marketing manager for Phoenix Stores especially as this role was linked to the Island's pharmacies and local heath care issues. At the time when The Bermuda TB Cancer and Health Association (as it was called then) was in a position to bring on board a Marketing and Communication specialist to drive their vision forward, and I knew that I could make a worthwhile contribution to this charity because of a strong background developing creative strategies and an absolute belief in the preventative health model they represented for the female population. The fact that they were a charity and needed to reach out to the whole community in order to improve services and facilities was a challenge I really wanted to tackle.

However, it was truly a leap of faith on the Centre's behalf to hire me at that time and I have never lost sight of that fact. It was one of the major reasons that kept me focused so as to ensure that the facility and the health care staff who work there received the recognition and support they so well deserved.

Q: How long were you with the Cancer and Health centre.

A: I started at the Centre early in 2000, just at the time when they relocated from the small facility next to the National Tennis Stadium into the brand new custom-built facility on Point Finger Road and I have just left the role.

Q: Describe your work there.

A: Initially I focused on formulating an annual event calendar to raise awareness of breast cancer and the importance of annual screening. This led to promoting and expanding the annual community awareness seminars in order to expand people's knowledge of conditions other than breast cancer such as prostate cancer, skin cancer and osteoporosis. The need for more information programmes, more community seminars and new equipment obviously required more funding so structuring and implementing a clear strategy for continually raising funds became an important focus of the job and became the essential element of success of the job as the Centre grew.

Q: What do you consider the highlights of your work there?

A: The major highlight that comes immediately to mind was the incredible support we received from the whole community throughout the 18-month campaign we launched that helped us raise $1.7m and enabled the Centre to purchase state of the art digital mammography equipment. We were humbled by the support received from every section of the community schools, local service groups, large organisations, individuals both on and off Island, trusts, church groups, the very young, the very old, even other charities that understood the importance of why we needed to raise this significant amount.

A by-product of purchasing and installing this equipment was to witness the time and the care every mammography tech took when working with their patients. They would explain the limitations of mammography screening using the old analog equipment and then show the patient the improved images taken by using the new digital equipment. During that first year they repeated this information hundreds of time knowing that probably every patient that came to the Centre for their annual mammogram had certainly contributed in some way to helping us raise the money to make this purchase and deserved a full explanation of the benefits of this new equipment.

Q: What were your challenges?

A: Enough hours in the day, days in the week and weeks in the year to meet the challenge of promoting the mission of the Centre prevention, detection, support so as to ease the fear that everyone experiences when referring to a cancer diagnosis. The task was enormous but it was essential to stay focused and on course because imparting that knowledge and promoting the importance of annual screening could definitely save a life.

Q: What's your vision of the Centre for the future?

A: Above and beyond the excellent work that the Centre will continue to provide to the community in mammography screening, bone densitometry and ultra sound screening, my future vision for the Centre is to provide guidance and counselling for the newly diagnosed cancer patient. A structure is required to support a patient, their family and their loved ones from the time they receive their diagnosis from their local GP to the time they commence their treatment regime. This could be a period of up to three weeks and it is a time of great stress. Unfortunately very limited mechanisms are currently in place to support the community should they need to access this type of support.

Q: Why did you leave? How do you feel now that you've gone?

A: I outstayed the six-year rule. So, like so many expat workers on the Island, the job left me rather than me leaving the job! I feel so privileged to have worked for Bermuda Cancer and Health Centre and particularly for the trust and freedom the board gave throughout my time at the Centre. Now I am no longer in the job I realise that their continued support encouraged me to reach further and try harder in more areas than I thought was possible! I firmly believe that trust is the momentum for job satisfaction and this job turned out to be the most satisfying one in my career.