Rebuilt a paediatric outreach clinic rota in Cork
Sara Ahmadi arrived in Cork with eleven years of paediatric nursing experience from Tehran and Shiraz. Her qualifications were recognised within eight months — faster than average — but her first Irish post was in a general ward, not paediatrics.
She noticed the outreach rota for a paediatric mobile clinic in North Cork was broken. Shifts were going uncovered. Parents were driving forty minutes for appointments that had been silently cancelled.
Sara volunteered her own time — evenings and weekends — to rebuild the entire scheduling system. She contacted the clinic coordinator, mapped the gaps, and recruited three other internationally-trained nurses who were also waiting for specialist placements.
Within six weeks the rota was fully covered. The clinic's cancellation rate dropped from 23% to under 4%. The health board noted the improvement in their quarterly review but did not know who had done it until a colleague mentioned Sara's name.
She is now working in the paediatric ward she trained for. She still checks the rota every Monday morning.