Ellen left a business career to cook aboard a hospital ship
She had spent years leading education companies. She wanted work she could hold in her hands.
Several hundred people live aboard a hospital ship. They all have to eat, three times a day, every day of a field service.
A deliberate change of direction
Ellen had built a career leading education businesses - meetings, strategy, screens. She wanted to do something physical and finite, where the result of a day's work was visible by the end of it.
Why the galley is a clinical role in disguise
Crew who work fourteen-hour surgical days need feeding properly, and patients recovering from major surgery need nutrition as part of their treatment. Malnourished patients heal slowly and are at higher risk in theatre; some are fed for weeks before they are fit for an operation at all.
The galley is therefore not a support function bolted onto the hospital. It is part of how the hospital works.
She meant to come once
Like a large share of the crew, Ellen intended a single field service and kept returning. Nothing about volunteering has to be permanent, and it frequently becomes so anyway.
