The media like to put labels on people and with Ailsa Denney it was easy: she was "the angel from the hell camps".

The Edinburgh-born nurse worked with refugees in amongst the carnage that was Rwanda, and the headline must have seemed the simplest way to convey the horror to a British breakfast table.

"I don't like to be referred to as an angel," she says. "I'm a professional; I'm a nurse.

"This is an area of work (aid work) that I have found I really enjoy. I do find myself in some precarious situations when I'm doing that, but it's very interesting and challenging work."

Her London work is in a high-tech environment

Trouble zones

Ailsa, 29, spends some of her time as a paediatric nurse doing intensive care duties in London's Brompton Hospital. But her main passion in life is undoubtedly her aid work, which has taken her from Romania to Chechnya, Rwanada and Zaire.

The conditions she has witnessed are a world away from the hi-tech, and comparatively well-funded healthcare service she delivers in the UK's capital.

Expectations of healthcare differ in developing countries

"In some of the refugee camps where I have worked, children have needed heart surgery and it's just been impossible.

"We don't have any oxygen, any suction, we have no support. So you just have to do your best, but they don't survive."

"In Africa, their expectations of what will happen when someone becomes very, very sick are different. They are more accepting when you get to the end of a course of treatment, if the patient dies then that's the end of the road."

Desperate need

The young Scot, who is featured in the BBC's Medicine Women series, has recently returned from Brazzaville, Congo, where she helped to set up a mass vaccination programme to protect the country's quarter of a million children from measles.

Measles is a major killer

The working conditions could not have been worse. The civil war destroyed the city's infrastructure; local health clinics lay amongst the wreckage of bombed-out tanks; rotting corpses still littered the streets.

And even though the government claimed to be in control, armed groups were frequently involved in gunfights on the city's streets.

It was a situation she has become used to over the years. Aid work is definitely a risky business, but it is also a vital one.

The wreckage of war

"Measles is very dangerous in developing countries, especially after famine or conflict such as in Brazzaville," she says. "If one child in the family goes down with measles, it's very easy to pass to the others.

"If they are in a poor state of general health, it can be fatal. It's one of the seven major killers in developing countries."

Professional image

Ailsa may object to the stereotypical image of her profession, but her story does have a very familiar ring to it.

"I grew up wanting to be a nurse. My mum's a nurse. I dressed up in my little nurse's uniform when I was very young and nursed my brothers, even if they didn't want to be nursed."

Peter is an aid worker as well

"Nursing is really about building up relationships with people at a very vulnerable time in their lives. And I feel I can go in and make a difference and help them."

She knows, however, that her frantic life cannot continue the way it does forever. She has just married fellow aid worker Peter - a "war romance" that survived the battle zone in Chechnya - and both intend to quit the international mercy work and get "a proper job".

Explaining what she does with her life will then become a little easier.

"I think it's very difficult for people to understand what we do. The thoughts range from, 'Ailsa lives in a tent in the middle of nowhere and starves for six months while she helps other people', and that ranges right back to, 'did you have a nice holiday and what a great tan you've got?'".

Ailsa Denney is featured in Medicine Women, a major new series from BBC TV. The programmes look at the motivations, politics and humanity that have driven women to the top of their profession.

They are broadcast on Thursday nights at 22:20 BST on BBC1.