Case Study: Magdalena’s Apprenticeship Journey
Posted on 2nd December 2025
Hi, my name is Magdalena, and I’ve recently completed the Senior Healthcare Support Worker Apprenticeship, with a podiatry pathway, and I’m proud to say I achieved a distinction!
This apprenticeship has been such a rewarding journey for me, both personally and professionally, and I’ve been told that I am the first person to complete the podiatry pathway within this programme, so it’s an exciting milestone.
In this brief, I’ll be talking a bit about why I chose an apprenticeship in podiatry, a little description of my journey, and what’s next for me now that I’ve completed the programme.
Podiatry is something I discovered along the way. My career background is related to care settings, and I wanted to progress. I realised that now my daughter has started school, I could think about my own career, and it felt like it was a perfect opportunity.
After starting my apprenticeship, I discovered podiatry as an interesting field of development. Despite the focus being mainly on the basic aspects of the patients’ feet, including corns, calluses, cutting nails, etc. It also looks at the biomechanical aspects of the human feet, such as wound care, diabetic foot, deformities, etc. I developed my knowledge and skills when supporting nail surgeries. I also perform post-nail surgery redress appointments with patients.
In addition to acquiring knowledge and skills in the role of podiatry assistant at the clinic, I had an opportunity to develop my organisational skills. I was able to work in different clinics, do the audit of dressing and footwear stock, and conduct health and safety audits. Additionally, I gained experience in a podiatry admin hub role to learn about the service operations from the administrative side.
I have learned also a lot about myself. My apprenticeship gave me the opportunity to think outside of the box, to leave my comfort zone and embrace the challenges, to develop my leadership skills, develop my adaptability skills, and to boost my confidence. I also had an opportunity to see just how much of a difference our team is making for our patients.
It was not an easy journey, and I did have a moment when I thought I would give it all up. At the beginning, I could not find the balance between my family life and work. The biggest challenge was being able to organise my study time and not procrastinate! Despite this setback, I decided to stay and see it through. Throughout my Apprenticeship journey, I always had the opportunity to speak freely about my concerns; I had a lot of support from my colleagues, my line manager, my apprenticeship tutors, and my family. All of them helped me to stay motivated, to stay resilient, and not to give up. This gave me strength and helped me to establish goals and a future career path in podiatry.
Thank you for taking the time to listen to my story.
An apprenticeship is a challenging journey, but fulfilling at the same time. I am very proud of what I have achieved.
I hope sharing my journey has given a bit of insight into what it’s like to do an apprenticeship.
I hope it will inspire others to take a similar path.
Thanks again. The best of luck to anyone starting or thinking about starting their own apprenticeship journey!
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