Shuna Colville announces her retirement
Aug 2019: After seven years as the first Anne Rowling Clinic and Research Project Manager, Shuna Colville is retiring.
‘It has been very humbling and an honour.’ Just one of the many things Shuna has to say about her time with the Anne Rowling Clinic, where she has both overseen the day-to-day activities and been instrumental in the Clinic’s strategic development since 2012, just before its official opening in 2013.
After qualifying as a nurse in Stirling in 1979, Shuna’s career led her to become an MND research nurse in 1996. In 1999 she went on to work as an MND nurse specialist for Tayside and North East Fife, only giving up her research nurse role in 2000. At the same time as this, Shuna also completed a Masters degree in public health, statistics and epidemiology, graduating in 2004.
During a career break, which started in 2006, Shuna joined the Board of Directors of MND Scotland for a time and then came back into paid employment in 2010 when she joined the University of Edinburgh to work on the MND register. It was from here that she took on the role of manager at the Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic.
Looking back on her time at the Clinic, Shuna commented:
“I have really enjoyed seeing the young researchers coming through the clinic, seeing them learn and develop, and how their time here has helped formulate their career paths and progression.
“I am proud to have been part of establishing a research clinic for Scotland that is attracting ever more neurological studies, to the extent that we are now providing a ‘menu’ of different studies so that there is something for everyone to participate in.
“I have seen how people really want to contribute. They are the experts of their own disease and want to pass that information on to help others. To help them be able to do that has been very humbling and an honour. I continue to be amazed at how determined to take part in research some people are, particularly when it can be physically difficult for some people to get to appointments. They want to find an answer to these terrible conditions and they know that they’re helping to find it, not really for themselves, but for future generations.
“The highlight of my time here is all the people I’ve met. There have been some fascinating people who have come through the doors of the Clinic – staff, researcher participants, patients and visitors.”
“Shuna is a legend. Wearing countless hats from nursing, operations and finance to donor relations, she has masterminded and overseen the growth and success of the Rowling Clinic. We owe her a great debt and wish her the very best in her well-deserved retirement”
Of her retirement plans Shuna said:
“We have just moved house, so I need to sort out a lot of things there. Other than that, it may sound like a cliché, but I’m looking forward to spending time with my family including my three grandchildren, and travelling. I am looking forward to following the ongoing success and development of the Clinic in the coming months and years.”
Shuna’s last day at the Clinic will be Friday 30th August.