Amy Vercell, research associate

Amy Vercell is our October 2021 You Made a Difference award winner. The following comments were made about Amy in the nominations. Judges picked her out as a very deserving winner and said that the comments made about her showed how she represents The Christie principles and behaviours.

“Amy has worked at The Christie for 4 years and she currently has 2 main roles. She works 4 days a week as a research associate in The Christie Patient Centered Research team and 1 day as an advanced nurse practitioner (ANP) on the nurse-led ambulatory admissions care unit.
“In her role as research associate, she has led various projects through from set up, data collection, analysis, and dissemination of results. She is currently leading on a study in collaboration with a commercial company who are creating the world’s first home blood monitoring device, allowing patients to take their own capillary blood test at home and the results sent directly to the clinical team.
“Amy was awarded a pre-doctoral fellowship position last year and has been working on this alongside her research associate role.
“As an ANP, Amy works with the team on the ward to review patients who have experienced problems due to their cancer or their treatment and ensure their problems are addressed using the most appropriate clinical pathway.
“As well as her roles at The Christie, Amy is also an honorary teaching fellow at the University of Manchester as she is leading on the development of an oncology masters’ module.
“Amy is extremely passionate about each of her roles and particularly proud of her nursing career. She cares deeply about the patients she treats and strives to make their time at The Christie a positive experience. She always goes above and beyond to ensure she is meeting expectations. She is an extremely hardworking, focused, and ambitious individual not afraid of a challenge.
“Amy is a keen runner and has just completed the London marathon with her partner Steve where they raised over £5,000 for Macmillan cancer. As I said above, she’s not afraid of a challenge and this definitely pushed Amy out of her comfort zone as she would usually run much shorter distances.
“We can’t talk about Amy without mentioning her cats Mabel and Matilda. Amy got them two years ago when they were kittens and they certainly keep Amy on her toes, often causing chaos in the background of her Teams calls!”

  - Evelyn Dolan, lead research nurse and manager

“At our event at the Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI), Amy really shown exceptional nursing care and skill during a very concerning incident with one of our colleagues who is well known to the team at The Christie.
“The lady unfortunately collapsed in the middle of the room whilst the presentations were going on and as you know many staff in such arenas, although first aid trained, don’t know how to response with the urgency required. Amy immediately came over and triaged the patient and assisted her discreetly, to keep her safe and comfortable whilst we awaited an ambulance.
“Amy is an exceptional nurse, and she did the nursing profession and The Christie proud at the event.
“Well done Amy and I hope you got to enjoy the rest of the evening.”

  - Claire O'Rourke, colleague

Has a staff member, team or volunteer at The Christie gone above and beyond in their work? You can nominate them for the monthly You Made a Difference Award.