Occupational therapist's incredible career path from QE2 hospitality to Glasgow's Queen Elizabeth University Hospital

Iain Jordan’s career path has taken him all around the world... and seen him travel from the QE2 to the QEUH.

Iain began his working life in the hospitality industry before his desire to travel saw him switch to a life at sea on cruise ships that sailed to incredible locations.

With round the world trips on the famous Cunard liner the QE2 to sailing through the Panama Canal and around Polynesia, Iain had a dream life.

But the 40-year-old left it all behind to go back to university and retrain as an occupational therapist.

He said: "I have had some amazing experiences.

"I sailed to Antarctica on the Star Princess and I will never get to do that again in my life.

"I've sat on a beach in the Falklands with the penguin colonies.

"Everything I did was fun. I worked for some incredible companies, had some incredible experiences with incredible people, while getting to live and work all over the world and be paid to do it.

"Some people think, 'Why would you ever give that up?' But I didn't see it as building a future for myself.

"As much as I loved the adventure and loved the travel and loved the people I wanted some degree of stability as well."

At 14 Iain began working in a local hotel, near North Connel, where he is originally from, and then decided to study for a BA in retail management at Glasgow Caledonian University.

A year later, in 1999, he started work in a pub while studying and that properly kickstarted his hospitality career.

A successful application to a graduate scheme took him to work in Leeds where he was an assistant bar manager before a chance encounter led to a job in TGI Fridays, bringing him back to Glasgow.

But the work wasn't quite was he had hoped it would be.

Iain said: "I wasn't enjoying what I was doing in my management career and that early on, to not be enjoying it, I was thinking this is really not how I should be feeling.

"So I moved home for a few months and worked in a restaurant at home while I thought about what to do next."

Iain had met people who had worked on cruise ships and the sense of adventure appealed to him.

Despite it being a competitive industry Iain decided to go for it, applying to a variety of different companies.

After flying to Paris to interview with Disney Cruise Line, he was offered a job... but he had also had an interview with Cunard in Southampton and was determined to hold out for a role on one of the cruise line's famous Queens.

The move paid off and Iain was offered a job on board the world renowned QE2 - though it wasn't quite so straightforward.

He said: "Once you get your job, you don't have a confirmed space on board yet and that can take quite a while.

"I was very persistent - I called every week going 'I'm still here' but then that just went on and on and on and eventually I said to my friend one day, 'Let's just meet in Glasgow and go to the travel agents and we'll book a trip somewhere'.

"Which we did, and ended up booking a year's backpacking trip.

"Two days later I got the phone call from Cunard to say I was going."

Iain decided to delay his backpacking travels and sign up for six months on board the QE2, which he describes as an incredible experience.

After an amazing six months he went travelling with the hope of rejoining the QE2 at the end, but by the time he returned home the ship's retirement had been announced.

Instead, he took a job with Princess Cruises, part of the Carnival group, and worked on four different ships travelling all over the world.

Iain said: "There's never a good time to stop that, it was really an amazing time.

"You have your six months on and two months off. You come home and then get your joining instructions for your next ship - and mine were to go for the Polynesian season sailing out of Tahiti and going to Bora Bora.

"So it was hard to quit then but I had lined up a job for when I got home to make sure I stayed."

Iain knew he wanted a career change but hospitality held on to him for a bit longer, including a job with the Orient Express working on the Royal Scotsman for two seasons.

But all the while he was thinking about what to do next.

He had friends working in the health and social care sector and had seen his gran supported by an occupational therapist so started to look into the career.

Iain said: "Finding out more about occupational therapy started to cement where I wanted to go next.

"When I finished work at the end of my day I wanted that feeling where you've really made a difference.

"Something I've always enjoyed is helping other people, making other people feel good, and to some degree you get that in hospitality but it wasn't in the way I wanted.

"With occupational therapy the entire profession is based on enabling people to live their lives well."

Iain wanted to stay in Glasgow so applied to return to Glasgow Caledonian University to do a two year accelerated Masters degree.

He said: "You do the equivalent of the four year course in two years and at Masters level - I don't think I grasped what that meant.

"It had been 13 years since I graduated and getting back into studying was the first hurdle.

"I did a module in the summer while I was still working on the Royal Scotsman and that was a shocker. I did get through it but it was very daunting."

Heading back to uni as a mature student was also daunting.

Iain added: "It was exciting as well though. It was very different to what my memories of uni were but there were people in the same boat - you learned from each other and support each other."

His people skills from hospitality helped when it was time to do placements - the course has students undertake four placements in hospitals and community settings.

He said: "If anything, your people skills have to be very good to live in that [cruise ship] environment but you develop a lot of good skills there too: emotional intelligence, interpersonal skills, anticipating others' needs.

"I like people's stories and am really interested in people so there was a a lot I could transfer from that hospitality background."

After graduating in 2017 Iain started his series of rotations, which took him from the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital to Gartnavel and the Royal Infirmary, working with elderly patients, in cardiology, general medicine and neurology.

He is now based back at the QEUH in the hyper acute stroke unit.

Iain is talking about his move to occupational therapy as part of Occupational Therapy Week 2020, which aims to encourage people to make a career change.

He said: "I have never regretted making the changes I have made. It's so worthwhile to do.

"No one day is the same. Every single person you meet has a different story and they have things that are very specifically important to them.

"We get very involved with the patients and how they want to live.

"Enabling people after maybe they've been ill or injured, helping someone to get back to living as independently as possible - that's a very enjoyable part of the job as well and it's why we're there."

Iain still has incredibly fond memories of his time at sea, especially on board the QE2.

He said: "She's such a famous ship, especially being built at the Clyde as well, so a lot of people have very fond memories of her and anyone who has worked on her does too.

"The Cunard ships draw such a crowd wherever they go.

"I was on the Silver Jubilee world cruise when the QE2 and the Queen Mary 2 met in Sydney Harbour.

"Hundreds of boats came out to sail us in and there were fireworks going off. For a young guy you go, 'This is amazing'. It was incredible.

"My friends are sick of hearing my stories.

"So if I get a patient who worked on the ship yards previously I'm like, 'Great, we can have a wee chat about the QE2.'"