Continence nursing offers opportunities for autonomy and direct client feedback
Janie Thompson, a continence nurse and Clinical Services Manager at the Continence Foundation of Australia, has spent more than two decades working as a continence nurse. She says being able to make a difference to improve people’s lives through continence management has sustained her in her speciality. “When you do a continence assessment and then […]
Tips for time management in acute care
Tips for time management in acute care
How to be a good preceptor
Having experienced the culture shock of moving from undergraduate study into the workplace firsthand, registered nurse Jennifer Hally decided to become a preceptor and role model to early career nurses and new staff members. In nursing, preceptors are experienced nurses formally assigned to provide transitional support to students, graduate nurses and newly employed staff navigating […]
A NUM’S top 7 tips for early career nurses
Starting out your nursing career can be daunting, exciting and challenging. Nurse Unit Manager (NUM) Pauline Ryan works at Victoria’s Monash Medical Centre in a cardiothoracic and respiratory unit, overseeing everything from daily operations to engaging with patients about their care and monitoring clinical standards. A large part of her role involves supporting and empowering […]
What I learned from my first month as a graduate nurse
Registered nurse Melanie Challen finished her graduate year at Peninsula Health’s Frankston Hospital in Victoria in February. She undertook three rotations throughout the year, working in gastroenterology and general medicine, the orthopaedic and plastics surgical ward and lastly in the emergency department. Melanie followed in the footsteps of her mother to become a nurse. She […]
My 7 top tips for new graduate nurses
Victorian graduate nurse Tess Carr-Howard is on the cusp of completing her graduate year at Barwon Health’s University Hospital in Geelong. She spent the first six months working on the Adult Acute Ward before moving to the hospital’s Special Care Nursery, a neonatal unit providing care for babies in the region. The 36-year-old always had […]
Supporting graduate nurses in aged care
When her father developed dementia in his mid-to-late 50s Dawn Ogden wanted to do everything in her power to help. It led her to a career in aged care and she never looked back. She began as a carer, progressed to an enrolled nurse, and recently qualified as a Registered Nurse before securing a graduate […]
Connecting to why you became a nurse
What is the reason you became a nurse? Was it to care for people? Help people to achieve a better level of health? With the increasing demands and responsibilities of the job, it can be easy to lose sight of that initial goal. For some nursing was the career path they knew they wanted to […]
Not enough time
The feeling of ‘not enough time’ to achieve what is needed in a day can overwhelm the best of us. The stress of which not only affects the time poor nurse or midwife, but their colleagues and patients as well. When it becomes too hard, and too much how do we minimise the effects of […]
Reconnecting to why you became a nurse
What is the reason you became a nurse? Was it to care for people? Help people to achieve a better level of health? With the increasing demands and responsibilities of the job, it can be easy to lose sight of that initial goal. For some nursing was the career path they knew they wanted to […]