Eileen Chambers, overall winner of the Nursing Standard/BUPA Nursing Nurse 90 Awards, describes her breakthrough in the treatment of leg ulcers

In 1979 working as a community nurse, a patient with a pair of oedematous ulcerated legs resisting all efforts of the then conventional treatment, was to launch me into specialising in the causation and treatment of the intractable problem of chronic leg ulcers. Questioning the accepted practice of moderate tension in bandaging these bloated legs - pouring serous fluid — I bound them firmly and spent a restless night before revisiting the patient next day.