July 20, 2025 • 43 mins
Today on the podcast we chat with Elise Bryant who is a Nurse Practitioner.
Elise is a passionate Nurse Practitioner with over 20 years experience. She specialises in Plastic and Reconstructive Nursing, Surgical Assisting, Skin Cancer & Cosmetic Skin Management, & Education.
Elise works in a variety of settings including her clinic - Skin Health Solutions - a Nurse Practitioner led clinic performing full skin examinations, skin evaluations and skin education. She is also a surgical assistant for three Brisbane based Plastic Surgeons and regularly provides education for nurses and nurse practitioners in the plastic surgery and dermatology space.
We discuss her pathway to becoming a NP and the challenge’s she faced on her path to become one.
Elise is part of my “tribe”. We support and assist each other regularly. We problem solve and chat regularly.
As nurses, we all need a colleague like Elise.
Skin Health Solutions
http://www.nutricia.com
http://www.tendernessfornurses.com.au
Sponsored by Nutricia. This episode was created independently by the presenters/speakers and the views expressed herein are those of the presenters/speakers, not of Nutricia. This content is intended for healthcare professionals. Medical professionals should rely on their own skill and assessment of individual patients.
Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/tendernessnurses
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Appochia Production.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hi everyone, thank you for tuning back into tenantus for Nurses.
I Suspeck Woodbine here this season. I am so excited
to announce that the podcast is being supported by Nutritia,
which is a global leader in medical nutrition. They understand
the needs of nurses in the nutrition space and for
over one hundred and twenty five years have provided products
(00:31):
to support child health. Some of Nutrita's pediatric brands include
Neo Kate Junior for children who have food allergies, and
apt to Grow for those fussy eaters. And those of
us who have children know many kids who go through
the phases of definite fussiness. For more information and resources,
visit the Nutrita Pediatrics Hub at nutritia dot com dot
(00:54):
au forward slash Pediatrics. I just want to say a
huge thank you to Nutritia. Their desire to support nurses
is truly appreciated, and they are allowing me to continue
this podcast so that we can all grow as nurses.
This season, we have some amazing speakers in the pediatric
space which I cannot wait to share with you all. Hi,
(01:14):
my name's Beck Woodbine and welcome to Tenderness for nurses.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
I'm grateful for the person that I have the opportunity
to be.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
So I hit it and parked it for Nellie four years.
We always have free will, We always get to choose.
We are autonomous.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Hi everyone, thank you for tuning back into Tenderness for Nurses.
I want to say a huge thank you to Nutritia
this season for sponsoring the podcast. And today I am
very lucky to have one of my best friends with me.
She is a nurse practitioner, a mentor to me, a colleague,
a friend, part of my support team. And I'd like
(01:54):
to introduce Elise Bryant. How are you, Delle good things back?
Speaker 1 (01:57):
How are you?
Speaker 3 (01:58):
I'm good. Alise is really.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Nervous because it's her first potty, but it's us a
little while to actually manage to get here together. It's
probably been twelve months we've been trying to do this podcast,
but I asked Elise to come on because she has
been a nurse practitioner for how many years now?
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Since twenty eleven. I graduated so and got my endorsement.
What's the fourteen years?
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Yeah? So mine was two thousand and sixteen.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
I got my NPS and I decided to study to
be a nurse practitioner because I'd always worked independently and
I could see the landscape around dermatology and cosmetic dermatology changing.
It hadn't at that stage, but I could see it
started to change and shift. So I made the decision
(02:48):
to become a nurse practitioner. And I have to say
it was so.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Hard, Oh incredibly. Do you find that as well? Absolutely? Yeah,
My Master's almost broke me. I think it was. It
was so intense, and I think it's pretty much the
same for most people that I've spoken to. The masters
is very intense. It's not only university work, but you
give a lot of your time doing practical work as well.
And I think most of us at that stage in
(03:15):
our lives have families, young children. Often I had young children.
I had a four or five and six seven year old.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
I mean, I was very lucky. I had very supportive husband.
As you know, my husband, he's also a nurse, and
so he very much understood what I wanted to do
and where I wanted to go, and a very supportive family,
and I think without that it would have been impossible it.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Yeah, So can you explain to everyone your background in
nursing and where you came from and where you sort
of segued into before becoming a nurse practitioner.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
If I go all the way back to when I
was in high school, I wanted to be a surgeon.
My father was a surgeon, still sort of is. He's
mostly retired these days. I always wanted to be a doctor,
surgeon specifically. I had a love for it. I worked
in my father's office, and I always thought that that's
what I wanted to do. My mother was a nurse,
and when I finished school, she said to me, why
(04:10):
don't you do nursing. It's a great pre med degree.
And I thought, okay, sure, I'll do that. So I
did nursing and loved it. Loved all of the biology,
loved all of the technical stuff, loved being with the patients,
and I actually really probably enjoyed that the most out
of everything. I actually met my husband at university and
we decided to get married. After we finished and I
(04:32):
started working, and I thought I'll work for a little bit,
and I was enjoying nursing so much, and I started
working in the operating theater and I started working in
an operating theater where my father was working as well.
So it was really nice to have that opportunity to
work with him and for him. Oh yeah, absolutely, that
would have been so much fun.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Yeah. I say that in the most respectful way, like
it's patient on the beach.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
No. No, it was really nice to be able to work
professionally together. You know, my father worked very hard, He
worked long hours, and when I was a child, he
was very busy. So it was really nice to be
able to have that time with him professionally and then
personally as well, between cases or having lunch or in
the end, that relationship went on for twenty years until
(05:16):
he mostly retired in twenty twenty. So I really enjoyed
working in the operating theater, and then I sort of
felt like I needed to do more. I'd been working
in a small facility, and I wanted to do a
bit more. And at the same time, I thought, oh
I really still that sort of back in my mind was,
you know, medicine, medicine, medicine. I went back to university.
I started a science degree because I had sat gamsat
(05:39):
and been unsuccessful because I didn't have the science background
that I needed. I went back to university, studied, did
a year of science and arts and resat Gamsat at
the end of that and was unsuccessful again. And at
that point I had to make a decision do I
continue down this path or do I follow nursing. And
I just loved it so much. By that stage, I
(06:00):
was working in a much bigger hospital. I was over
at Green Slapes Private and I was really enjoying doing
a bit of management, and I was working with different surgeons.
So you're back in theater, then, I was, I've always
been in theater. Yeah, yeah. Another criticism back then, it
certainly was a lot of people said to me, oh,
you didn't do any time on the wards. How are
you still nursing and never having done any time on
(06:20):
the wards? And I was like, well, I'm fitter. Nursing
is nursing so so many different strands of nursing. There's
so many different strands of nursing, and I think I
loved that, you know, just that variety, and even in
the operating theater, and especially in a big operating theater complex,
there's so many different types of nursing. It's so many
different specialties and so many different operations to learn and
there was always something to learn and something new and
(06:42):
something interesting, and so I pursued that. And then after
a little while I sort of started moving into management,
and I thought, okay, well, I'm going to make a
career of this. By that stage, I had my first child,
and I thought, no, I really am going to make
a career of this. I want to do something, and
at that point in time, really the only options that
we knew about were management. So went and pursued a
(07:04):
business degree, started working in management, managing the flaw in
the theaters, and did a few other managerial type roles.
Helped my father run his day hospital and facilities associated
with that, and I really enjoyed it. And then one
day he came to me and he said he had
actually lost his practice nurse and his assistant in almost
(07:27):
the same week. And he said to me, have you
ever thought about being a surgical assistant? And back then
there were very few nurse surgical assistants. They were there,
and there was a course, and I said, well, you
know what, I actually kind of done sitting behind a desk.
I really enjoyed being with patients. So I liked the
opportunity to go back and work with patients and so
I took it. I did the course and while I
(07:48):
was doing the surgical assisting course, I started to learn
about this nurse practitioner role. I did a bit of
research and at that stage we were still state based
registration and the course for surgical assisting there was only
one in Australia still is only one in Australia at
that time was in New South Wales. I couldn't do
my nurse practitioner training in New South Wales because that
(08:09):
wouldn't allow me to be registered in Queensland. So I
actually had to complete the course in New South Wales
and then transfer and use the university credits to come
across to Queensland. By the time I finished my Nurse
practitioner master's degree in Queensland we had national registration. I
finished my master's degree at the University of Queensland and
(08:33):
I really felt very passionately about the fact that surgical
assistants could provide more as nurses. We could look at
it from a nursing perspective and give a more holistic
approach to being a surgical assistant than just the person
in there holding the retractor and doing the soutring so
(08:54):
my father and I worked together and we worked towards
making that a role. When I finally did my endorsement,
I was endorsed as a perioperative and plastic surgery nurse
practitioner was looking after patients pre entrant and post operatively.
So I would assess patients before their surgery and do
all their bloods ensure that they were suitable for the procedure.
(09:15):
I would be a second consult for the surgeon as well,
and part of that is psychological consultation and being in
plastic surgery, we do a body dysmorphy disorder screen or
BDD screen these days. Back then we didn't, so it
was almost I got the privilege of being able to
do that in a way, and then I would assist
with their surgery. I'd be a friendly face on the
(09:37):
day of their surgery, and then I would be the
person taking their dressings down a week later after their operation.
So that's to me, holistic care, Totally holistic care, and
it was what we had been taught when I had
done my undergraduate degree. You know, they'd said, will nurses
provide holistic care? And that was the paradigm that was
at the time. Sort of oh, ram down our throat,
(09:58):
you will be holistic care. You know, it was the ethos,
it was the paradigm at the time, and it's fantastic
having lived it and worked it, and it is amazing.
I know, it's very rewarding for patients. The feedback we
get from patients is that it's really important to them.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Even with cosmetic nursing medicine, you build up that rapport
with your patients and they come back again and again
and again.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
It gives them comfort to know a you know your qualifications,
they've experienced the outcome of your treatment, and you become
a bit of a sounding board and they trust you
to say no and you would have absolutely Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
I think that's the saying no bit is actually really important.
You know, they need to see that if they're not
comfortable that you can recognize that and say, hey, have
you thought about maybe saying no to this? You know,
And we had situations where that happened, definitely working together,
and it's certainly something I see now in my own practice.
(10:59):
I think I felt so passionately about it being a
career path for nurses who were good clinically, but we're
being shoved into management roles. Absolutely yeah, because there was
no future past level one year eight, which is from
eight years postgraduate. That was where you maxed out at
your income, whereas now we have infinite potential as clinical
(11:24):
practitioners who can work privately in our own clinics. It
was not something that I had ever dreamed that I
could possibly do. When I finished my nursing degree, I
did not think. I don't know about you, but I
didn't think that I would ever have my own clinic,
that I would ever be practicing independently. I thought I
had to work in a hospital, and that was interesting.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
Because I worked in theaters like you.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
But I've also done palliative care, and I've done aged care,
and I've done workplace self and safety and kids, and
I fell into running my business. It just happened. I
bought a b retaining business and it just went crazy.
And then I was like, well, this is silly. I've
got my nursing degree. I could be doing something more
with this. And I was always interested in skin so
(12:11):
I just ended up buying my first device from Quterira
and self taught because there was just nothing around to learn, like,
there were no courses at that stage.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
In dermatology.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
For nurses, there were no courses for cosmetic injectibles, but
I made sure I went to every conference I could
and asked as many people as many questions as I
could fit in, and stumbled my way into owning and
running a business, and nearly twenty years later, I'm still going.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Certainly, that's how a lot of our generation of nurses
have done it. You know, it sort of started as
a bit of a side hustle and then it's kind
of developed from there. But I think for the current
generation of nursing graduates, it is a potential career path
for them is to actually go I am going to
run my own business. I am going to be a
(13:02):
nurse practitioner. I am going to practice independently. I am
going to be able to give back to my community
through independent practice of something that I run and own,
rather than working for somebody else. I couldn't agree more
and I think it's something that's developed over the last
I think the biggest achievement for nurse practitioners is offering
that career path to nurses in a clinical space, which
(13:25):
definitely wasn't on the cards when I finished nursing.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
My feeling is that we were always as nurses, we
were under the guidance of doctors, and that was it.
I feel super proud that nurses now are running their
own businesses and are looking outside the square and some
very successful businesses.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
Amazing, yeah, amazingly successful, and it.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
Makes me super proud of the achievements of these nurses.
It's funny.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
You and I went down to NSS a couple of
weekends ago and we had the privilege of chatting with
Professor Ronicker Casey. She's the past president of the Nursing
with Reward. She is for the rest of this year,
the rest of this year. I actually asked the question
because there's always these rumors going around that the Nursing
Midwifery Board do not like nurses orn as practitioners that
(14:17):
work within the aesthetic cosmetic space. And she was really
shocked to hear us ask that she'd heard it before.
But she said, you know, the majority of the people
on the board are so delighted that they're watching nurses
develop their own businesses and growing and growing in business,
growing professionally, growing personally. She said, I don't know where
(14:40):
this is coming from, because she was genuine during that
conversation that she wasn't you know where do rumors like
that start.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Unfortunately, nurses can be their own worst enemy in my time,
in all my career, I don't know about yours, but
in mind, I've found that the people that have wanted
to pull me down from where I am or from
what I'm doing, I have been nurses. They're not doctors.
The doctors have been incredibly support and they can see
the potential in what we do and what we provide
(15:09):
to patients and how we work together collaboratively. All the
doctors I work with are very collaborative.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
But the difference is, and this is my personal opinion,
is you work with specialists. And I have found as
a nurse practitioner, specialists love nurse practitioners. They support us,
They see the value of a nurse practitioner. It tends
to be and not all GPS, but GPS and other nurses.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Yeah, even I would say my GP colleagues, they're fifty
to fifty split. You know, some are extremely against and
will happily tell patients that I'm not qualified, which is
not true, whereas the other half will say, oh no, no, no,
go and see her. She actually specializes in this and
this is what she does. So you know, I think
you're better off seeing her than you are seeing me.
For this, some gps are really really encouraging and the
(16:01):
other half are I would say, feel threatened. But you know,
concer or don't understand what we do.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
I find that really with the amount of acne treatments
and Roseashua I do, I'm freeing up a GP clinic
and I am more than happy for them to manage
and look after more complex patients. And I'm not saying
that acne management isn't complex, because it can be.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
That's what I do day in, day out.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
But I think that comes back to what we do
as nurse practitioners. You know, we deal with the base
level of things, but we also know and this is
why we have a right of referral so that we
can pass it on to some a specialist who can
deal with the more complex cases. Just like in general practice,
the important thing is to know where your limits are.
I mean, I do skin cancer checks, full skin examinations,
(16:49):
and I'm taking the burden of regular screening away from
the GPS who have a lot of other things, more
complex things that they need to deal with and I
think that's where we come in as nurse practitioners in
is doing that basic screening, doing that basic management, and
then knowing when to pass it on. If I get
(17:11):
a complex case, I know when I need to pass
that on to a plastic surgeon, a dermatologist, radiologist. So
we provide a really important place in the healthcare area.
You know, all of the spectrum of what we provide
as a healthcare services in Australia.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
See you and I are very lucky because we have
an amazing team of specialists that support us.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
I feel very, very blessed to have these people in
my corner. But what's interesting is that these guys refer
their patience to me. One specialist refers his non surgical
rhinoplast is to me, and then I've got another specialist
that refers injectables that sort of thing, and it makes
(17:58):
me super proud. And they've seen my work, they value it.
They realize the study and effort I've put into what
I've done, as have you. And I know these guys
did the same for you, absolutely for different things.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
So, and I refer to Elise all the time for
our skin cancer management. That's who we send all our
patients to and recommend.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Likewise, I do the opposite. So relationships are very important
in business, and we forge fantastic relationships not only between
each other and supportive relationships between each other, but also
with our specialists. It's reciprocal both ways, so you know
I refer to them, they refer to me. It's respectful
and professional. It's very rewarding as a practitioner to be
(18:41):
in that space and again not something that I had
ever thought that I would be doing as a graduate nurse.
You know, when I was a graduate nurse, the vision
was not there for.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
That, but no one talked about it.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
No one talked about it, No one talked about it.
It was very early days of nurse practitioners. There was
not a lot happening here in Queensland and we still
now have quite a significant number of perioperative nurse practitioners,
which is absolutely fantastic.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
So what are you allowed to do that's different in
the theater space compared to say.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
Scrub nurs Okay, so scrub nurse and that is my
original training is in charge of managing the instruments, the
accountable items, advocating for the patient. Of course, as a nurse.
As a surgical assistant, you are the second lot of
hands for the surgeon. That often includes holding retractors, helping
with surgical decision making, assisting with simple things like suturing.
(19:35):
It's a skill that a lot of assistants have that
the average SCRUB nurse doesn't have. A lot of the
average GPS doctors don't have either. So it's a wonderful
skill to be able to have and to be able
to use well. Plastic surgery particularly relies on a lot
of suiting and good suturing. Good suituring, Yeah, you have
to be pretty good at it, and that was something
(19:56):
that really drew me towards assisting, was being able to
master that skill particularly, and to be able to master
the skill of assisting a surgeon of difficult situations where
they just need a second set of eyes or opinion
to assist them to make a decision. I'm not saying
that happens all the time. It really doesn't. It happens
once in the blue moon, but it's important that you
(20:18):
have the experience and the ability to do that and
understanding of the procedures and how they work, how they're
supposed to go.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
It's funny you say that.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
I asked doctor Afrago if I could go in and
watch him perform a rhino plastic because I do non
surgical rhyino plastis. And one of the things that really
interested me was the two of you bouncing off each other.
But he was asking you questions and you were giving
your very valued opinion back to him. Now what he
(20:49):
chose to do with that is up to the stage.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Up to the yes.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
But it was just this continual conversation or then there'd
be silence and then you know, he'd be asking you
questions and vice versa. And I thought, Wow, these guys
have worked together a for a very long time, but
they really trust each other and trust each other's opinions
and what they're seeing.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
Absolutely, And I think that's probably as a young surgical assistant,
that's the hardest thing to get used to, to adapt to.
Somebody said to me once, it's a very special relationship
between surgeon and assistant because sometimes it can be very intense,
and as the assistant, you're the next person that the
surgeon is relying on. A lot of my role, especially
(21:31):
when I first started, when I was proving myself as
a nurse practitioner and proving that I deserve to be
in the operating theater. Having had a background as a
scrub nurse, I spend a lot of time assisting the
scrub staff and now these days still a resource for them.
And I think as a nurse that's something different that
we provide because we look at the holistic picture. We're
(21:53):
looking not only at the patient, We're looking at the
operating theater, what's happening with the management of the day.
Because you have that holistic focus, you do see the
whole picture, and people do rely on you to answer questions.
What suture is the surgeon going to use here? What
is likely to happen with this procedure? Every procedure is
slightly different, every person is slightly different, So as an assistant,
(22:16):
you need to provide that. And I think that's something
that we do as nurses that is above and beyond
what we expect about medical assistance.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
It's wonderful to see it in action in the theater,
like as an observer, like it was really cool. I
remember when I was working at one of the day surgeries.
I used to love suturing and the guy ony guys
aren't the world's greatest suturers, but they were always open
because I wanted to learn. A couple of the nurses
(22:47):
had a crack at me saying that, oh my god,
you just want to be a doctor. It was just awful,
and I remember I never suit it after that, No,
because I was so embarrassed that, oh god, do I
think I'm too good for everybody? You know, just silly
thoughts that shouldn't have worried me. And if I had
a stay in the theater, there's no doubt I would
have gone down the pathway of being surgical assistant.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Absolutely because I love that stuff. Oh and look, it's
that technical aspect and the skill that's involved in what
you do that probably draws you to that. I don't
do a lot of injecting. Most of my injecting comes
across to beck here. But when I do do injecting,
the bit that I love the most is that skill,
the technical aspect of actually physically doing what I do too. Yeah,
(23:31):
it's fun and also challenging, empowering. Yes, absolutely, I have
to say I agree with you that the number of
criticisms that I've had have been from nurses have not
been from doctors. I've had the occasional wide end. You
do medicine from the doctors, or you'd be a great doctor.
That's great. Yeah, sure, But I'm a nurse and I'm
(23:52):
happy being a nurse. I really love that I get
the ability to look at things differently, and to look
at patients differently and scenarios differently. And I like to
think that my surgeons respect that as well. They like
that I have a different perspective on the patients and
how things and be able to give them a different opinion.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Because our models of care are very different, very different,
Thank heavens they are. Oh yeah, I wouldn't want to
be a doctor, not for love nor money. I respect
a lot of doctors. There's a few I don't. But
the same is in nursing. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
I think we're reaching a point in nursing now where
cultural change is coming. We are unfortunately losing nurses very
early on in their career, a very large percentage of nurses,
and I think it's because we have had this culture
of pushing our younger staff and criticizing them a little
(24:47):
bit too much. I don't think the gen zs who
are our current graduates are going to tolerate that. We
don't just see it in our industry. We see it
in other industries, but in nursing. From my perspective, we
need to now encourage our gen zs to follow a
career part and to look at nursing as something that
(25:07):
can be a career. It can be a business career,
It can be a management career, it can be a
law career, it can be a clinical career. You know,
it can be lots of things. And I think nursing
is very flexible in that way. And I think we
should be encouraging our younger nurses, the graduates to say, hey,
don't just think about what you're going to be doing tomorrow.
(25:30):
Think about where you're going to be in five years,
ten years. Do you want to be running your own business.
What do you want to be doing in your own business.
There is so much that we can do as nurses independently,
and I think that the important thing is it's unlimited financially.
I think a lot of people think that when they
finish nursing that I'm limited to what the pay scale is.
(25:54):
This is where I'm going to go if I want
to be a manager. I want to be a manager.
I want to be director of nursing by the time
I'm forty. Well, that's a very good aspiration. How are
you going to get there? And whereas if you really
want to, you can create your own business. And we
have many, many nurses who have created incredible businesses that
are absolutely incredibly successful and are earning unlimited funds.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
And good on them, absolutely so proud that they're nurses.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
And I think we shouldn't be thinking this is where
our limit is. It's where can we go and what
can we do? Because I feel very proud that I
have my own clinic, I have my own space, and
I have my own patients, and I have my own
responsibilities as a nurse with a nursing focus treating patients,
and I think that is such an achievement. I think
(26:44):
for a nurse, it's powerful. It's powerful. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
Where do you see nurse practitioners in the future everywhere?
I hope so.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
Yeah. I think we have the ability to permeate every
area of medicine with the right vision, and we have
had lots of vision, but I think with more vision,
I think we can actually just keep rolling and just
get better and better and go into different areas I
think we have the opportunity to solve the primary care crisis.
(27:15):
We have the opportunity to solve the rural and remote issues.
And I think with the right fostering and the right
encouragement of the younger generation, we will see them do that.
If we encourage them as senior nurses, we encourage them
to aspire to a career and making a difference in
their community. I think we can see them do some
(27:38):
amazing things, because you know, my children at Generation Z
and they certainly just question everything, and I love that,
and I love that they look at things differently, and
they want work life balance and all of these things
that we haven't had as nurses. You know, certainly, I
know when when I finished nursing, I know that it
still happens, unfortunately, but there was always a lot of pressure.
(28:01):
Oh you're the single one, you can do the on call,
somebody sick? Can you do they extra shifts. I think
we have the opportunity as nurses and nurse practitioners to
solve this issue of understaffing.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
I think I might have mentioned it to you when
I was recently in hospital. I was talking to one
of the nurses there and she had just done a
big twelve hour shift and they'd asked her to do
another eight hours on top of it and then come
back in the morning for an early And I said
to her, yeah, but where's your fatigue management? And she said, oh, well,
(28:35):
you know, we get paid well for it. But my
next question to her was, so, if you're really tired
and there's an error in your judgment, who gets blamed?
Speaker 3 (28:44):
She said, oh, I would.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
It was so fraught with danger to me that hospital
would ask someone to work those sorts and that we've
all done it, you know, and you know the system
isn't perfect, and we are desperate for nurses, desperate for doctors,
but there still has to be management of the nurses
and not burn them out. That is what happens, especially
(29:08):
if you're like us, really struggle to say no because
they know we'll they'll ask us because then I will
always say yes.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
And I think that's a general trait of nursing. Most
nurses that I know are people please us. They're there
because they care and they want to do the very
best they can for every person that they see and
work with, whether that's every every customer, whether that's a surgeon,
a consultant, specialist, a patient, their fellow staff. That's who
(29:37):
we are as nurses. And I think that has very
much been used. Yeah, absolutely, yeah, and I think it's
time that we said no, no, no, we just need
to train more nurses. And I think part of that
is encouraging nurses to stay in the profession and part
of that is giving them career progression. And I think
(29:58):
clinical career progression is nurse practitioner.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
Without a doubt, how you care for you.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Neither of us are great at it, No, but is
it something you're becoming more aware of the need to
take time out, a little bit more work life balance.
And in saying that, when you own and run your
own business, that is tricky.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Absolutely, And I think anybody who owns and runs their
own business small business, whether you're a tradee 'or owning
a restaurant or a skin clinic, it's a lot of work.
The buck stops at you as the owner and the
manager and the everything. But that's part of running a
small business and that's something I knew that I was
committing to. I've been very lucky in my career. I've
had experience with small business, watching my family, my parents,
(30:46):
run their small business. So I think I knew that
I was getting myself in for a lot, and I
think consciously I have done that at my current age,
where my children are grown, and where I know that
I have more time and space mentally and physically to
be able to commit to the business. But it is
time I have to say I'm not great with work
(31:07):
life balance at this point in my life. I've always
been an overworker our work six days a week, with
no chance of changing that anytime soon. It is interestingly
quite a common topic of conversation for us in our
operating theaters. Surgeons I find have the same problem. They
struggle with their work life balance. I think the younger
(31:27):
surgeons are doing it better because they have come through
a system where they weren't doing really long shifts. They
was fatigue management for them. They know where their limits are.
The system's not perfect, but I think, you know, I
do try to focus on doing things for myself. I
try and exercise, I do try and take a couple
of hours for myself in the evenings every day. I
(31:49):
think if I keep trying to be a bit more balanced,
that will work. I think the most important thing for
me is my friends. I have a really fantastic group
of friends who are very understanding about my ridiculous working hours,
and they support me. I know I couldn't do my job,
but I couldn't do what I do without my friends
and my family and their support. And I think getting
a group of people around you who are supportive is
(32:12):
essential to being able to work.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
As mind it, and I think about our nurse practitioner colleagues.
Speaker 3 (32:19):
We're all very similar.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Oh we are.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
I know you and I make an effort to try
and catch up on a fairly regular basis, which I
always look forward to. And the ability to be able
to debrief with someone that's in your situation, yes, is
highly valuable.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
Oh, it's absolutely essential. I do see the doctors do
it very well. They always catch up for dinner meetings
or I don't think we do that as well as
nurse practitioners. And I think, given that we are the
highest clinical level of nurses, that is again somewhere that
we could go as nurse practitioners. I think we can
look at what they've done as doctors as specialists. You know,
(33:00):
they often we'll get together for dinner and talk through cases,
or they'll talk through situations. They'll often call each other.
You see that a lot. There's very collegial relationship between doctors.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
See you, and we do that.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
We definitely do that.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
And I've got another colleague, Kathma Kahn Charlotte as a
registered nurse, highly experienced. They're the people I call to
if I need to bounce something off them. And then
if it's the next level, there's doctor Kennedy, there's doctor VerTech,
there's doctor Go, doctor Yip. You know, I've got a
great network of plastics and derms around me and I
(33:38):
feel so blessed to have these people in my life.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
And I don't hesitate.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
If I'm concerned about something, I do not hesitate to
contact my colleagues.
Speaker 3 (33:48):
And it's funny.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
We've got a second year nurse that's doing reception for
us here at perfectly smooth. I said to her the
other day, the best trait you can have as a
nurse is knowing when to ask for help.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Absolutely, I think that's the best trait that anybody in
met usine. Medicine can know when to ask God and
know when to ask for help and getting those collaborative
relationships that you can actually know who to ring and
who to ask for help. I mean originally when those
practitioners first started. We've formally had to have those collaborative arrangements,
but I think we created them informally unofficially because that
(34:26):
was a way to get through the process and to
help out. When you're working out independently on your own,
you have to have people that you can call. Definitely, Yeah,
it's the same situation. You know, the work colleagues that
are your support system, just like your my friends and
my home support system. I think all of that is
essential you have to have that.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
I've got some wonderful colleagues and support networks that I've
developed from going to the States. And actually I just
contacted Rana because there's a big Adverse Events conference in
Chicago in October.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
I'll probably go to and then go on and see Chloe.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
And this is one of the things I about the
States is that most of the conferences now, nurses will
boycott it. If there aren't nurses speaking, they just won't go,
or physicians assistants. So they're highly valued and recognized in
the States. These are people that are and I hate
the word key opinion leader, but they are in that
(35:25):
area and they're respected so respected by their colleagues, by
their doctors. That's where we need to be headed. That's
where our aim should be. That yes, we have different disciplines,
but we all work together so the greater good of
the patient.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
Every part of the healthcare team is essential. And nurses
are not handmaidens. They have been for a long time.
We do have a different perspective and we do work
collaboratively as part of the team, and we're an essential
part of the team. And certainly that has changed in
(36:01):
my nursing career, and it certainly will continue to change,
I think with time, at least I hope. So I'm
certainly going to keep working towards that me too.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
What advice would you give to a young nurse that
knows they want to be clinical, not sure what to do,
where to go, how to do.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
It, how to become a nurse practitioner when you finish.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
Or what's the best way to go ahead and do that?
Speaker 1 (36:27):
So firstly, you need to find what you like, because
we are specialized. And so I always say to the grads,
and I do get this question quite a bit in
the theater, how do I do what you do? I say, Well, Firstly,
you need to figure out what it is that you like.
What specialty do you like? Do you like working the
operating theater. Let's start with your specialty first. Do you
like working in the ward, Do you like working GP clinic?
(36:50):
Do you like working rural and remote? You need to
figure out what it is you like, and sometimes that's
a case of getting some experience in all of those areas.
I was very lucky. I found what I liked straight away.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
Yeah, me too.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
Yeah, so it was easy. But for some people it
takes a little bit of time and they need to
figure out what they love. Once they've figured out what
they love, they then need to figure out where they
fit in that space. So if I use operating theater
as an example, because that's my experience, I am super
specialized in plastic and reconstructive surgery, so I only surgically
(37:21):
assist for that specialty. I could surgically assist for other specialties,
but that's my love and that's what I do. You
need to find out what it is exactly that you
love within that specialty, and then you just need to
see the whole the opportunity and where you can work
in that area. And now sometimes that opportunity has already
been created and there are nurse practitioner candidate positions in
that area, and you might go, I really love this
(37:43):
and I'm going to work in this area as a
surgical assistant for example, that that scope exists, having a
lot of NED too, absolutely emergency, lots of other specialises, diabetes,
cart out care. There's a lot of specialties that are
very well established. Pain management, weight management. Once you've figured
it out, you either have to look for where the
(38:03):
hole is or where you know you can assist, or
you need to take an established route. Keep working, keep
working towards what it is that you love and making
what it is you love into a career, and then
start looking at universities. So for most people, there is
a requirement at this stage that you must be five
(38:24):
years postgraduate in order to apply for endorsement each university.
Though some universities will admit students for their master and
as practitioner studies when they are five years and can
demonstrate their advanced clinical practice. Some universities will admit at
three years postgraduate with advanced clinical practice. I have to
say it is really hard to get advanced clinical practice
(38:46):
in the first three years of your training. But some
people can do it, and if you can do it,
power to you, that's fantastic. But in order to apply
for your endorsement and to finish the course, you do
have to be five years postgraduate at this stage. And
you know, this is always under review, this is always changing.
It's something we just us a lot from a professional
(39:07):
perspective with our colleagues and as part of the college.
I just tell people just to figure out what it
is you really love and focus on that. When you're
a grad you need to figure out where you want
to be and what you want to be doing and
what you enjoy because you're going to be doing it
for a very long time, so you really want to
enjoy it.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
That's why you know. I ran for the hills. Anytime
anyone mentioned orthopedics in the I hated it with a passion.
But guy iny fertility plastics. I did a lot of eyes.
I really loved the finessing the.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
We're the same. I did a lot of eyes when
I first graduated and loved that because I loved the instrumentation,
fine work and the skill required. At that stage. We
used to fold lenses at scrub nurses to put into
the eye. So yeah, that was that was a fantastic skill.
Another skill. I love skills so.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
And god, when you'd lose a teno needle, Oh it
was never usd that loft, I just want to say,
And it was horrendous, But I loved that sort of
work and going to work was never hard.
Speaker 1 (40:15):
No. I think the shifts that I used to dread
were the ones that I knew that I wasn't doing
the things that I enjoyed, and so I just made
a career out of doing something that I enjoyed. And
that's my advice to young Yeah, absolutely do what you
love because you're going to be doing in a long time.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
And learn to do it well and honestly be the best.
Be the best, and the world will be your oyster.
And you just watch this space of being a nurse practitioner,
and nursing is just going to.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
Evolve and grow and bloom.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
And I think it's going to be a very exciting time.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
It is. It is, and I think, you know, they're
doing some amazing things in the States there really are.
The nurse practitioners now have a direct entry postgraduate course
for a Doctor of Nurse Practitioner studies. I think that's
something that we could possibly look at in the future,
which would be fantastic.
Speaker 3 (41:04):
We need that.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
Yeah, I think there's a lot a big push for nursepreneurs,
nurse entrepreneurs, and I think there's a couple of really
prominent nurses in the States who are doing a lot
of great work around entrepreneurship for nurses. That's another thing.
Speaker 3 (41:17):
Actually interviewed Leandra and huge advocate for that.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
She's amazing, really.
Speaker 3 (41:23):
Open my eyes.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
And that's something they do really well in the States
is they love people that are successful, celebrate it, celebrate it.
Sometimes here in Australia we tend not to do that.
Speaker 1 (41:37):
We get a bit of tall poppy sometimes. Yeah, the
tall poppy in nursing is enacted by nurses mostly.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
We talk about it all the time on the podcast here.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
Nurses eat their own that's probably the most common saying
on this podcast.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
Yeah, and it's something that we have the opportunity now
a seenior nurses to change. It's a culture that we
can change and I think it might be a bit
aspirational of me, but I think we can do it.
I think there's a lot of positive minded senior nurse
practitioners and nurses who are keen to see that change.
And it was something that I when we spoke with Veronica,
(42:12):
that I noticed was with Veronica as well. She was
very positive about change and encouraging young nurses to pursue
different areas in nursing, different entrepreneurial areas. Absolutely. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
What would be the one piece of advice you would
give to nurses in the current climate of nursing.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
There's lots of This is so much advice to give.
I think being true to yourself. I think that that
is really really important. Be true to who you are,
what you love, and be passionate about that. Work hard,
but work hard with balance, and part of that is
being true to yourself. I think, you know.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
I think we need to learn to advocate for ourselves
and our colleagues better.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
Absolutely, and that's not easy. No, it's not ea, and
it's not easy in systems that are very well established
and very tradition heavy.
Speaker 3 (43:13):
Thank you for our chat today.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (43:15):
We could have just sat here and all day, so
much to.
Speaker 2 (43:19):
Talk about, but I truly appreciate everything you do for
me and for the clinic, and the advice and help
and support you give. Myself and my girls in our team.
So thank you so much, thank you
Appochia Production.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hi everyone, thank you for tuning back into tenantus for Nurses.
I Suspeck Woodbine here this season. I am so excited
to announce that the podcast is being supported by Nutritia,
which is a global leader in medical nutrition. They understand
the needs of nurses in the nutrition space and for
over one hundred and twenty five years have provided products
(00:31):
to support child health. Some of Nutrita's pediatric brands include
Neo Kate Junior for children who have food allergies, and
apt to Grow for those fussy eaters. And those of
us who have children know many kids who go through
the phases of definite fussiness. For more information and resources,
visit the Nutrita Pediatrics Hub at nutritia dot com dot
(00:54):
au forward slash Pediatrics. I just want to say a
huge thank you to Nutritia. Their desire to support nurses
is truly appreciated, and they are allowing me to continue
this podcast so that we can all grow as nurses.
This season, we have some amazing speakers in the pediatric
space which I cannot wait to share with you all. Hi,
(01:14):
my name's Beck Woodbine and welcome to Tenderness for nurses.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
I'm grateful for the person that I have the opportunity
to be.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
So I hit it and parked it for Nellie four years.
We always have free will, We always get to choose.
We are autonomous.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Hi everyone, thank you for tuning back into Tenderness for Nurses.
I want to say a huge thank you to Nutritia
this season for sponsoring the podcast. And today I am
very lucky to have one of my best friends with me.
She is a nurse practitioner, a mentor to me, a colleague,
a friend, part of my support team. And I'd like
(01:54):
to introduce Elise Bryant. How are you, Delle good things back?
Speaker 1 (01:57):
How are you?
Speaker 3 (01:58):
I'm good. Alise is really.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Nervous because it's her first potty, but it's us a
little while to actually manage to get here together. It's
probably been twelve months we've been trying to do this podcast,
but I asked Elise to come on because she has
been a nurse practitioner for how many years now?
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Since twenty eleven. I graduated so and got my endorsement.
What's the fourteen years?
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Yeah? So mine was two thousand and sixteen.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
I got my NPS and I decided to study to
be a nurse practitioner because I'd always worked independently and
I could see the landscape around dermatology and cosmetic dermatology changing.
It hadn't at that stage, but I could see it
started to change and shift. So I made the decision
(02:48):
to become a nurse practitioner. And I have to say
it was so.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Hard, Oh incredibly. Do you find that as well? Absolutely? Yeah,
My Master's almost broke me. I think it was. It
was so intense, and I think it's pretty much the
same for most people that I've spoken to. The masters
is very intense. It's not only university work, but you
give a lot of your time doing practical work as well.
And I think most of us at that stage in
(03:15):
our lives have families, young children. Often I had young children.
I had a four or five and six seven year old.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
I mean, I was very lucky. I had very supportive husband.
As you know, my husband, he's also a nurse, and
so he very much understood what I wanted to do
and where I wanted to go, and a very supportive family,
and I think without that it would have been impossible it.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Yeah, So can you explain to everyone your background in
nursing and where you came from and where you sort
of segued into before becoming a nurse practitioner.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
If I go all the way back to when I
was in high school, I wanted to be a surgeon.
My father was a surgeon, still sort of is. He's
mostly retired these days. I always wanted to be a doctor,
surgeon specifically. I had a love for it. I worked
in my father's office, and I always thought that that's
what I wanted to do. My mother was a nurse,
and when I finished school, she said to me, why
(04:10):
don't you do nursing. It's a great pre med degree.
And I thought, okay, sure, I'll do that. So I
did nursing and loved it. Loved all of the biology,
loved all of the technical stuff, loved being with the patients,
and I actually really probably enjoyed that the most out
of everything. I actually met my husband at university and
we decided to get married. After we finished and I
(04:32):
started working, and I thought I'll work for a little bit,
and I was enjoying nursing so much, and I started
working in the operating theater and I started working in
an operating theater where my father was working as well.
So it was really nice to have that opportunity to
work with him and for him. Oh yeah, absolutely, that
would have been so much fun.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Yeah. I say that in the most respectful way, like
it's patient on the beach.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
No. No, it was really nice to be able to work
professionally together. You know, my father worked very hard, He
worked long hours, and when I was a child, he
was very busy. So it was really nice to be
able to have that time with him professionally and then
personally as well, between cases or having lunch or in
the end, that relationship went on for twenty years until
(05:16):
he mostly retired in twenty twenty. So I really enjoyed
working in the operating theater, and then I sort of
felt like I needed to do more. I'd been working
in a small facility, and I wanted to do a
bit more. And at the same time, I thought, oh
I really still that sort of back in my mind was,
you know, medicine, medicine, medicine. I went back to university.
I started a science degree because I had sat gamsat
(05:39):
and been unsuccessful because I didn't have the science background
that I needed. I went back to university, studied, did
a year of science and arts and resat Gamsat at
the end of that and was unsuccessful again. And at
that point I had to make a decision do I
continue down this path or do I follow nursing. And
I just loved it so much. By that stage, I
(06:00):
was working in a much bigger hospital. I was over
at Green Slapes Private and I was really enjoying doing
a bit of management, and I was working with different surgeons.
So you're back in theater, then, I was, I've always
been in theater. Yeah, yeah. Another criticism back then, it
certainly was a lot of people said to me, oh,
you didn't do any time on the wards. How are
you still nursing and never having done any time on
(06:20):
the wards? And I was like, well, I'm fitter. Nursing
is nursing so so many different strands of nursing. There's
so many different strands of nursing, and I think I
loved that, you know, just that variety, and even in
the operating theater, and especially in a big operating theater complex,
there's so many different types of nursing. It's so many
different specialties and so many different operations to learn and
there was always something to learn and something new and
(06:42):
something interesting, and so I pursued that. And then after
a little while I sort of started moving into management,
and I thought, okay, well, I'm going to make a
career of this. By that stage, I had my first child,
and I thought, no, I really am going to make
a career of this. I want to do something, and
at that point in time, really the only options that
we knew about were management. So went and pursued a
(07:04):
business degree, started working in management, managing the flaw in
the theaters, and did a few other managerial type roles.
Helped my father run his day hospital and facilities associated
with that, and I really enjoyed it. And then one
day he came to me and he said he had
actually lost his practice nurse and his assistant in almost
(07:27):
the same week. And he said to me, have you
ever thought about being a surgical assistant? And back then
there were very few nurse surgical assistants. They were there,
and there was a course, and I said, well, you
know what, I actually kind of done sitting behind a desk.
I really enjoyed being with patients. So I liked the
opportunity to go back and work with patients and so
I took it. I did the course and while I
(07:48):
was doing the surgical assisting course, I started to learn
about this nurse practitioner role. I did a bit of
research and at that stage we were still state based
registration and the course for surgical assisting there was only
one in Australia still is only one in Australia at
that time was in New South Wales. I couldn't do
my nurse practitioner training in New South Wales because that
(08:09):
wouldn't allow me to be registered in Queensland. So I
actually had to complete the course in New South Wales
and then transfer and use the university credits to come
across to Queensland. By the time I finished my Nurse
practitioner master's degree in Queensland we had national registration. I
finished my master's degree at the University of Queensland and
(08:33):
I really felt very passionately about the fact that surgical
assistants could provide more as nurses. We could look at
it from a nursing perspective and give a more holistic
approach to being a surgical assistant than just the person
in there holding the retractor and doing the soutring so
(08:54):
my father and I worked together and we worked towards
making that a role. When I finally did my endorsement,
I was endorsed as a perioperative and plastic surgery nurse
practitioner was looking after patients pre entrant and post operatively.
So I would assess patients before their surgery and do
all their bloods ensure that they were suitable for the procedure.
(09:15):
I would be a second consult for the surgeon as well,
and part of that is psychological consultation and being in
plastic surgery, we do a body dysmorphy disorder screen or
BDD screen these days. Back then we didn't, so it
was almost I got the privilege of being able to
do that in a way, and then I would assist
with their surgery. I'd be a friendly face on the
(09:37):
day of their surgery, and then I would be the
person taking their dressings down a week later after their operation.
So that's to me, holistic care, Totally holistic care, and
it was what we had been taught when I had
done my undergraduate degree. You know, they'd said, will nurses
provide holistic care? And that was the paradigm that was
at the time. Sort of oh, ram down our throat,
(09:58):
you will be holistic care. You know, it was the ethos,
it was the paradigm at the time, and it's fantastic
having lived it and worked it, and it is amazing.
I know, it's very rewarding for patients. The feedback we
get from patients is that it's really important to them.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Even with cosmetic nursing medicine, you build up that rapport
with your patients and they come back again and again
and again.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
It gives them comfort to know a you know your qualifications,
they've experienced the outcome of your treatment, and you become
a bit of a sounding board and they trust you
to say no and you would have absolutely Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
I think that's the saying no bit is actually really important.
You know, they need to see that if they're not
comfortable that you can recognize that and say, hey, have
you thought about maybe saying no to this? You know,
And we had situations where that happened, definitely working together,
and it's certainly something I see now in my own practice.
(10:59):
I think I felt so passionately about it being a
career path for nurses who were good clinically, but we're
being shoved into management roles. Absolutely yeah, because there was
no future past level one year eight, which is from
eight years postgraduate. That was where you maxed out at
your income, whereas now we have infinite potential as clinical
(11:24):
practitioners who can work privately in our own clinics. It
was not something that I had ever dreamed that I
could possibly do. When I finished my nursing degree, I
did not think. I don't know about you, but I
didn't think that I would ever have my own clinic,
that I would ever be practicing independently. I thought I
had to work in a hospital, and that was interesting.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
Because I worked in theaters like you.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
But I've also done palliative care, and I've done aged care,
and I've done workplace self and safety and kids, and
I fell into running my business. It just happened. I
bought a b retaining business and it just went crazy.
And then I was like, well, this is silly. I've
got my nursing degree. I could be doing something more
with this. And I was always interested in skin so
(12:11):
I just ended up buying my first device from Quterira
and self taught because there was just nothing around to learn, like,
there were no courses at that stage.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
In dermatology.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
For nurses, there were no courses for cosmetic injectibles, but
I made sure I went to every conference I could
and asked as many people as many questions as I
could fit in, and stumbled my way into owning and
running a business, and nearly twenty years later, I'm still going.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Certainly, that's how a lot of our generation of nurses
have done it. You know, it sort of started as
a bit of a side hustle and then it's kind
of developed from there. But I think for the current
generation of nursing graduates, it is a potential career path
for them is to actually go I am going to
run my own business. I am going to be a
(13:02):
nurse practitioner. I am going to practice independently. I am
going to be able to give back to my community
through independent practice of something that I run and own,
rather than working for somebody else. I couldn't agree more
and I think it's something that's developed over the last
I think the biggest achievement for nurse practitioners is offering
that career path to nurses in a clinical space, which
(13:25):
definitely wasn't on the cards when I finished nursing.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
My feeling is that we were always as nurses, we
were under the guidance of doctors, and that was it.
I feel super proud that nurses now are running their
own businesses and are looking outside the square and some
very successful businesses.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
Amazing, yeah, amazingly successful, and it.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
Makes me super proud of the achievements of these nurses.
It's funny.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
You and I went down to NSS a couple of
weekends ago and we had the privilege of chatting with
Professor Ronicker Casey. She's the past president of the Nursing
with Reward. She is for the rest of this year,
the rest of this year. I actually asked the question
because there's always these rumors going around that the Nursing
Midwifery Board do not like nurses orn as practitioners that
(14:17):
work within the aesthetic cosmetic space. And she was really
shocked to hear us ask that she'd heard it before.
But she said, you know, the majority of the people
on the board are so delighted that they're watching nurses
develop their own businesses and growing and growing in business,
growing professionally, growing personally. She said, I don't know where
(14:40):
this is coming from, because she was genuine during that
conversation that she wasn't you know where do rumors like
that start.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Unfortunately, nurses can be their own worst enemy in my time,
in all my career, I don't know about yours, but
in mind, I've found that the people that have wanted
to pull me down from where I am or from
what I'm doing, I have been nurses. They're not doctors.
The doctors have been incredibly support and they can see
the potential in what we do and what we provide
(15:09):
to patients and how we work together collaboratively. All the
doctors I work with are very collaborative.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
But the difference is, and this is my personal opinion,
is you work with specialists. And I have found as
a nurse practitioner, specialists love nurse practitioners. They support us,
They see the value of a nurse practitioner. It tends
to be and not all GPS, but GPS and other nurses.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Yeah, even I would say my GP colleagues, they're fifty
to fifty split. You know, some are extremely against and
will happily tell patients that I'm not qualified, which is
not true, whereas the other half will say, oh no, no, no,
go and see her. She actually specializes in this and
this is what she does. So you know, I think
you're better off seeing her than you are seeing me.
For this, some gps are really really encouraging and the
(16:01):
other half are I would say, feel threatened. But you know,
concer or don't understand what we do.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
I find that really with the amount of acne treatments
and Roseashua I do, I'm freeing up a GP clinic
and I am more than happy for them to manage
and look after more complex patients. And I'm not saying
that acne management isn't complex, because it can be.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
That's what I do day in, day out.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
But I think that comes back to what we do
as nurse practitioners. You know, we deal with the base
level of things, but we also know and this is
why we have a right of referral so that we
can pass it on to some a specialist who can
deal with the more complex cases. Just like in general practice,
the important thing is to know where your limits are.
I mean, I do skin cancer checks, full skin examinations,
(16:49):
and I'm taking the burden of regular screening away from
the GPS who have a lot of other things, more
complex things that they need to deal with and I
think that's where we come in as nurse practitioners in
is doing that basic screening, doing that basic management, and
then knowing when to pass it on. If I get
(17:11):
a complex case, I know when I need to pass
that on to a plastic surgeon, a dermatologist, radiologist. So
we provide a really important place in the healthcare area.
You know, all of the spectrum of what we provide
as a healthcare services in Australia.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
See you and I are very lucky because we have
an amazing team of specialists that support us.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
I feel very, very blessed to have these people in
my corner. But what's interesting is that these guys refer
their patience to me. One specialist refers his non surgical
rhinoplast is to me, and then I've got another specialist
that refers injectables that sort of thing, and it makes
(17:58):
me super proud. And they've seen my work, they value it.
They realize the study and effort I've put into what
I've done, as have you. And I know these guys
did the same for you, absolutely for different things.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
So, and I refer to Elise all the time for
our skin cancer management. That's who we send all our
patients to and recommend.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Likewise, I do the opposite. So relationships are very important
in business, and we forge fantastic relationships not only between
each other and supportive relationships between each other, but also
with our specialists. It's reciprocal both ways, so you know
I refer to them, they refer to me. It's respectful
and professional. It's very rewarding as a practitioner to be
(18:41):
in that space and again not something that I had
ever thought that I would be doing as a graduate nurse.
You know, when I was a graduate nurse, the vision
was not there for.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
That, but no one talked about it.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
No one talked about it, No one talked about it.
It was very early days of nurse practitioners. There was
not a lot happening here in Queensland and we still
now have quite a significant number of perioperative nurse practitioners,
which is absolutely fantastic.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
So what are you allowed to do that's different in
the theater space compared to say.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
Scrub nurs Okay, so scrub nurse and that is my
original training is in charge of managing the instruments, the
accountable items, advocating for the patient. Of course, as a nurse.
As a surgical assistant, you are the second lot of
hands for the surgeon. That often includes holding retractors, helping
with surgical decision making, assisting with simple things like suturing.
(19:35):
It's a skill that a lot of assistants have that
the average SCRUB nurse doesn't have. A lot of the
average GPS doctors don't have either. So it's a wonderful
skill to be able to have and to be able
to use well. Plastic surgery particularly relies on a lot
of suiting and good suturing. Good suituring, Yeah, you have
to be pretty good at it, and that was something
(19:56):
that really drew me towards assisting, was being able to
master that skill particularly, and to be able to master
the skill of assisting a surgeon of difficult situations where
they just need a second set of eyes or opinion
to assist them to make a decision. I'm not saying
that happens all the time. It really doesn't. It happens
once in the blue moon, but it's important that you
(20:18):
have the experience and the ability to do that and
understanding of the procedures and how they work, how they're
supposed to go.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
It's funny you say that.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
I asked doctor Afrago if I could go in and
watch him perform a rhino plastic because I do non
surgical rhyino plastis. And one of the things that really
interested me was the two of you bouncing off each other.
But he was asking you questions and you were giving
your very valued opinion back to him. Now what he
(20:49):
chose to do with that is up to the stage.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Up to the yes.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
But it was just this continual conversation or then there'd
be silence and then you know, he'd be asking you
questions and vice versa. And I thought, Wow, these guys
have worked together a for a very long time, but
they really trust each other and trust each other's opinions
and what they're seeing.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
Absolutely, And I think that's probably as a young surgical assistant,
that's the hardest thing to get used to, to adapt to.
Somebody said to me once, it's a very special relationship
between surgeon and assistant because sometimes it can be very intense,
and as the assistant, you're the next person that the
surgeon is relying on. A lot of my role, especially
(21:31):
when I first started, when I was proving myself as
a nurse practitioner and proving that I deserve to be
in the operating theater. Having had a background as a
scrub nurse, I spend a lot of time assisting the
scrub staff and now these days still a resource for them.
And I think as a nurse that's something different that
we provide because we look at the holistic picture. We're
(21:53):
looking not only at the patient, We're looking at the
operating theater, what's happening with the management of the day.
Because you have that holistic focus, you do see the
whole picture, and people do rely on you to answer questions.
What suture is the surgeon going to use here? What
is likely to happen with this procedure? Every procedure is
slightly different, every person is slightly different, So as an assistant,
(22:16):
you need to provide that. And I think that's something
that we do as nurses that is above and beyond
what we expect about medical assistance.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
It's wonderful to see it in action in the theater,
like as an observer, like it was really cool. I
remember when I was working at one of the day surgeries.
I used to love suturing and the guy ony guys
aren't the world's greatest suturers, but they were always open
because I wanted to learn. A couple of the nurses
(22:47):
had a crack at me saying that, oh my god,
you just want to be a doctor. It was just awful,
and I remember I never suit it after that, No,
because I was so embarrassed that, oh god, do I
think I'm too good for everybody? You know, just silly
thoughts that shouldn't have worried me. And if I had
a stay in the theater, there's no doubt I would
have gone down the pathway of being surgical assistant.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Absolutely because I love that stuff. Oh and look, it's
that technical aspect and the skill that's involved in what
you do that probably draws you to that. I don't
do a lot of injecting. Most of my injecting comes
across to beck here. But when I do do injecting,
the bit that I love the most is that skill,
the technical aspect of actually physically doing what I do too. Yeah,
(23:31):
it's fun and also challenging, empowering. Yes, absolutely, I have
to say I agree with you that the number of
criticisms that I've had have been from nurses have not
been from doctors. I've had the occasional wide end. You
do medicine from the doctors, or you'd be a great doctor.
That's great. Yeah, sure, But I'm a nurse and I'm
(23:52):
happy being a nurse. I really love that I get
the ability to look at things differently, and to look
at patients differently and scenarios differently. And I like to
think that my surgeons respect that as well. They like
that I have a different perspective on the patients and
how things and be able to give them a different opinion.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Because our models of care are very different, very different,
Thank heavens they are. Oh yeah, I wouldn't want to
be a doctor, not for love nor money. I respect
a lot of doctors. There's a few I don't. But
the same is in nursing. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
I think we're reaching a point in nursing now where
cultural change is coming. We are unfortunately losing nurses very
early on in their career, a very large percentage of nurses,
and I think it's because we have had this culture
of pushing our younger staff and criticizing them a little
(24:47):
bit too much. I don't think the gen zs who
are our current graduates are going to tolerate that. We
don't just see it in our industry. We see it
in other industries, but in nursing. From my perspective, we
need to now encourage our gen zs to follow a
career part and to look at nursing as something that
(25:07):
can be a career. It can be a business career,
It can be a management career, it can be a
law career, it can be a clinical career. You know,
it can be lots of things. And I think nursing
is very flexible in that way. And I think we
should be encouraging our younger nurses, the graduates to say, hey,
don't just think about what you're going to be doing tomorrow.
(25:30):
Think about where you're going to be in five years,
ten years. Do you want to be running your own business.
What do you want to be doing in your own business.
There is so much that we can do as nurses independently,
and I think that the important thing is it's unlimited financially.
I think a lot of people think that when they
finish nursing that I'm limited to what the pay scale is.
(25:54):
This is where I'm going to go if I want
to be a manager. I want to be a manager.
I want to be director of nursing by the time
I'm forty. Well, that's a very good aspiration. How are
you going to get there? And whereas if you really
want to, you can create your own business. And we
have many, many nurses who have created incredible businesses that
are absolutely incredibly successful and are earning unlimited funds.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
And good on them, absolutely so proud that they're nurses.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
And I think we shouldn't be thinking this is where
our limit is. It's where can we go and what
can we do? Because I feel very proud that I
have my own clinic, I have my own space, and
I have my own patients, and I have my own
responsibilities as a nurse with a nursing focus treating patients,
and I think that is such an achievement. I think
(26:44):
for a nurse, it's powerful. It's powerful. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
Where do you see nurse practitioners in the future everywhere?
I hope so.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
Yeah. I think we have the ability to permeate every
area of medicine with the right vision, and we have
had lots of vision, but I think with more vision,
I think we can actually just keep rolling and just
get better and better and go into different areas I
think we have the opportunity to solve the primary care crisis.
(27:15):
We have the opportunity to solve the rural and remote issues.
And I think with the right fostering and the right
encouragement of the younger generation, we will see them do that.
If we encourage them as senior nurses, we encourage them
to aspire to a career and making a difference in
their community. I think we can see them do some
(27:38):
amazing things, because you know, my children at Generation Z
and they certainly just question everything, and I love that,
and I love that they look at things differently, and
they want work life balance and all of these things
that we haven't had as nurses. You know, certainly, I
know when when I finished nursing, I know that it
still happens, unfortunately, but there was always a lot of pressure.
(28:01):
Oh you're the single one, you can do the on call,
somebody sick? Can you do they extra shifts. I think
we have the opportunity as nurses and nurse practitioners to
solve this issue of understaffing.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
I think I might have mentioned it to you when
I was recently in hospital. I was talking to one
of the nurses there and she had just done a
big twelve hour shift and they'd asked her to do
another eight hours on top of it and then come
back in the morning for an early And I said
to her, yeah, but where's your fatigue management? And she said, oh, well,
(28:35):
you know, we get paid well for it. But my
next question to her was, so, if you're really tired
and there's an error in your judgment, who gets blamed?
Speaker 3 (28:44):
She said, oh, I would.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
It was so fraught with danger to me that hospital
would ask someone to work those sorts and that we've
all done it, you know, and you know the system
isn't perfect, and we are desperate for nurses, desperate for doctors,
but there still has to be management of the nurses
and not burn them out. That is what happens, especially
(29:08):
if you're like us, really struggle to say no because
they know we'll they'll ask us because then I will
always say yes.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
And I think that's a general trait of nursing. Most
nurses that I know are people please us. They're there
because they care and they want to do the very
best they can for every person that they see and
work with, whether that's every every customer, whether that's a surgeon,
a consultant, specialist, a patient, their fellow staff. That's who
(29:37):
we are as nurses. And I think that has very
much been used. Yeah, absolutely, yeah, and I think it's
time that we said no, no, no, we just need
to train more nurses. And I think part of that
is encouraging nurses to stay in the profession and part
of that is giving them career progression. And I think
(29:58):
clinical career progression is nurse practitioner.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
Without a doubt, how you care for you.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Neither of us are great at it, No, but is
it something you're becoming more aware of the need to
take time out, a little bit more work life balance.
And in saying that, when you own and run your
own business, that is tricky.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Absolutely, And I think anybody who owns and runs their
own business small business, whether you're a tradee 'or owning
a restaurant or a skin clinic, it's a lot of work.
The buck stops at you as the owner and the
manager and the everything. But that's part of running a
small business and that's something I knew that I was
committing to. I've been very lucky in my career. I've
had experience with small business, watching my family, my parents,
(30:46):
run their small business. So I think I knew that
I was getting myself in for a lot, and I
think consciously I have done that at my current age,
where my children are grown, and where I know that
I have more time and space mentally and physically to
be able to commit to the business. But it is
time I have to say I'm not great with work
(31:07):
life balance at this point in my life. I've always
been an overworker our work six days a week, with
no chance of changing that anytime soon. It is interestingly
quite a common topic of conversation for us in our
operating theaters. Surgeons I find have the same problem. They
struggle with their work life balance. I think the younger
(31:27):
surgeons are doing it better because they have come through
a system where they weren't doing really long shifts. They
was fatigue management for them. They know where their limits are.
The system's not perfect, but I think, you know, I
do try to focus on doing things for myself. I
try and exercise, I do try and take a couple
of hours for myself in the evenings every day. I
(31:49):
think if I keep trying to be a bit more balanced,
that will work. I think the most important thing for
me is my friends. I have a really fantastic group
of friends who are very understanding about my ridiculous working hours,
and they support me. I know I couldn't do my job,
but I couldn't do what I do without my friends
and my family and their support. And I think getting
a group of people around you who are supportive is
(32:12):
essential to being able to work.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
As mind it, and I think about our nurse practitioner colleagues.
Speaker 3 (32:19):
We're all very similar.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Oh we are.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
I know you and I make an effort to try
and catch up on a fairly regular basis, which I
always look forward to. And the ability to be able
to debrief with someone that's in your situation, yes, is
highly valuable.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
Oh, it's absolutely essential. I do see the doctors do
it very well. They always catch up for dinner meetings
or I don't think we do that as well as
nurse practitioners. And I think, given that we are the
highest clinical level of nurses, that is again somewhere that
we could go as nurse practitioners. I think we can
look at what they've done as doctors as specialists. You know,
(33:00):
they often we'll get together for dinner and talk through cases,
or they'll talk through situations. They'll often call each other.
You see that a lot. There's very collegial relationship between doctors.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
See you, and we do that.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
We definitely do that.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
And I've got another colleague, Kathma Kahn Charlotte as a
registered nurse, highly experienced. They're the people I call to
if I need to bounce something off them. And then
if it's the next level, there's doctor Kennedy, there's doctor VerTech,
there's doctor Go, doctor Yip. You know, I've got a
great network of plastics and derms around me and I
(33:38):
feel so blessed to have these people in my life.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
And I don't hesitate.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
If I'm concerned about something, I do not hesitate to
contact my colleagues.
Speaker 3 (33:48):
And it's funny.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
We've got a second year nurse that's doing reception for
us here at perfectly smooth. I said to her the
other day, the best trait you can have as a
nurse is knowing when to ask for help.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Absolutely, I think that's the best trait that anybody in
met usine. Medicine can know when to ask God and
know when to ask for help and getting those collaborative
relationships that you can actually know who to ring and
who to ask for help. I mean originally when those
practitioners first started. We've formally had to have those collaborative arrangements,
but I think we created them informally unofficially because that
(34:26):
was a way to get through the process and to
help out. When you're working out independently on your own,
you have to have people that you can call. Definitely, Yeah,
it's the same situation. You know, the work colleagues that
are your support system, just like your my friends and
my home support system. I think all of that is
essential you have to have that.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
I've got some wonderful colleagues and support networks that I've
developed from going to the States. And actually I just
contacted Rana because there's a big Adverse Events conference in
Chicago in October.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
I'll probably go to and then go on and see Chloe.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
And this is one of the things I about the
States is that most of the conferences now, nurses will
boycott it. If there aren't nurses speaking, they just won't go,
or physicians assistants. So they're highly valued and recognized in
the States. These are people that are and I hate
the word key opinion leader, but they are in that
(35:25):
area and they're respected so respected by their colleagues, by
their doctors. That's where we need to be headed. That's
where our aim should be. That yes, we have different disciplines,
but we all work together so the greater good of
the patient.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
Every part of the healthcare team is essential. And nurses
are not handmaidens. They have been for a long time.
We do have a different perspective and we do work
collaboratively as part of the team, and we're an essential
part of the team. And certainly that has changed in
(36:01):
my nursing career, and it certainly will continue to change,
I think with time, at least I hope. So I'm
certainly going to keep working towards that me too.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
What advice would you give to a young nurse that
knows they want to be clinical, not sure what to do,
where to go, how to do.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
It, how to become a nurse practitioner when you finish.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
Or what's the best way to go ahead and do that?
Speaker 1 (36:27):
So firstly, you need to find what you like, because
we are specialized. And so I always say to the grads,
and I do get this question quite a bit in
the theater, how do I do what you do? I say, Well, Firstly,
you need to figure out what it is that you like.
What specialty do you like? Do you like working the
operating theater. Let's start with your specialty first. Do you
like working in the ward, Do you like working GP clinic?
(36:50):
Do you like working rural and remote? You need to
figure out what it is you like, and sometimes that's
a case of getting some experience in all of those areas.
I was very lucky. I found what I liked straight away.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
Yeah, me too.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
Yeah, so it was easy. But for some people it
takes a little bit of time and they need to
figure out what they love. Once they've figured out what
they love, they then need to figure out where they
fit in that space. So if I use operating theater
as an example, because that's my experience, I am super
specialized in plastic and reconstructive surgery, so I only surgically
(37:21):
assist for that specialty. I could surgically assist for other specialties,
but that's my love and that's what I do. You
need to find out what it is exactly that you
love within that specialty, and then you just need to
see the whole the opportunity and where you can work
in that area. And now sometimes that opportunity has already
been created and there are nurse practitioner candidate positions in
that area, and you might go, I really love this
(37:43):
and I'm going to work in this area as a
surgical assistant for example, that that scope exists, having a
lot of NED too, absolutely emergency, lots of other specialises, diabetes,
cart out care. There's a lot of specialties that are
very well established. Pain management, weight management. Once you've figured
it out, you either have to look for where the
(38:03):
hole is or where you know you can assist, or
you need to take an established route. Keep working, keep
working towards what it is that you love and making
what it is you love into a career, and then
start looking at universities. So for most people, there is
a requirement at this stage that you must be five
(38:24):
years postgraduate in order to apply for endorsement each university.
Though some universities will admit students for their master and
as practitioner studies when they are five years and can
demonstrate their advanced clinical practice. Some universities will admit at
three years postgraduate with advanced clinical practice. I have to
say it is really hard to get advanced clinical practice
(38:46):
in the first three years of your training. But some
people can do it, and if you can do it,
power to you, that's fantastic. But in order to apply
for your endorsement and to finish the course, you do
have to be five years postgraduate at this stage. And
you know, this is always under review, this is always changing.
It's something we just us a lot from a professional
(39:07):
perspective with our colleagues and as part of the college.
I just tell people just to figure out what it
is you really love and focus on that. When you're
a grad you need to figure out where you want
to be and what you want to be doing and
what you enjoy because you're going to be doing it
for a very long time, so you really want to
enjoy it.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
That's why you know. I ran for the hills. Anytime
anyone mentioned orthopedics in the I hated it with a passion.
But guy iny fertility plastics. I did a lot of eyes.
I really loved the finessing the.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
We're the same. I did a lot of eyes when
I first graduated and loved that because I loved the instrumentation,
fine work and the skill required. At that stage. We
used to fold lenses at scrub nurses to put into
the eye. So yeah, that was that was a fantastic skill.
Another skill. I love skills so.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
And god, when you'd lose a teno needle, Oh it
was never usd that loft, I just want to say,
And it was horrendous, But I loved that sort of
work and going to work was never hard.
Speaker 1 (40:15):
No. I think the shifts that I used to dread
were the ones that I knew that I wasn't doing
the things that I enjoyed, and so I just made
a career out of doing something that I enjoyed. And
that's my advice to young Yeah, absolutely do what you
love because you're going to be doing in a long time.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
And learn to do it well and honestly be the best.
Be the best, and the world will be your oyster.
And you just watch this space of being a nurse practitioner,
and nursing is just going to.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
Evolve and grow and bloom.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
And I think it's going to be a very exciting time.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
It is. It is, and I think, you know, they're
doing some amazing things in the States there really are.
The nurse practitioners now have a direct entry postgraduate course
for a Doctor of Nurse Practitioner studies. I think that's
something that we could possibly look at in the future,
which would be fantastic.
Speaker 3 (41:04):
We need that.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
Yeah, I think there's a lot a big push for nursepreneurs,
nurse entrepreneurs, and I think there's a couple of really
prominent nurses in the States who are doing a lot
of great work around entrepreneurship for nurses. That's another thing.
Speaker 3 (41:17):
Actually interviewed Leandra and huge advocate for that.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
She's amazing, really.
Speaker 3 (41:23):
Open my eyes.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
And that's something they do really well in the States
is they love people that are successful, celebrate it, celebrate it.
Sometimes here in Australia we tend not to do that.
Speaker 1 (41:37):
We get a bit of tall poppy sometimes. Yeah, the
tall poppy in nursing is enacted by nurses mostly.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
We talk about it all the time on the podcast here.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
Nurses eat their own that's probably the most common saying
on this podcast.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
Yeah, and it's something that we have the opportunity now
a seenior nurses to change. It's a culture that we
can change and I think it might be a bit
aspirational of me, but I think we can do it.
I think there's a lot of positive minded senior nurse
practitioners and nurses who are keen to see that change.
And it was something that I when we spoke with Veronica,
(42:12):
that I noticed was with Veronica as well. She was
very positive about change and encouraging young nurses to pursue
different areas in nursing, different entrepreneurial areas. Absolutely. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
What would be the one piece of advice you would
give to nurses in the current climate of nursing.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
There's lots of This is so much advice to give.
I think being true to yourself. I think that that
is really really important. Be true to who you are,
what you love, and be passionate about that. Work hard,
but work hard with balance, and part of that is
being true to yourself. I think, you know.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
I think we need to learn to advocate for ourselves
and our colleagues better.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
Absolutely, and that's not easy. No, it's not ea, and
it's not easy in systems that are very well established
and very tradition heavy.
Speaker 3 (43:13):
Thank you for our chat today.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (43:15):
We could have just sat here and all day, so
much to.
Speaker 2 (43:19):
Talk about, but I truly appreciate everything you do for
me and for the clinic, and the advice and help
and support you give. Myself and my girls in our team.
So thank you so much, thank you
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