Nursing and Midwifery Emporium

Louise Webber has made wound therapies her life mission. It's a fascinating take on an area that is firmly owned by the nursing and midwifery space. We bring a unique skill set backed by an enormous body of peer reviewed scienitific evidence. And: what's amazing is that we can practice entirely autonomously. How I love when I hear that! And that's precisely what Louise Webber has done. She recognised that she possessed an advanced level of specialist knowledge and had a strong desire to share that, practice in that space and find a place in the world where it became her own pocked in the healthcare world. And that's precisely what she's done. She shares her story with Sue in how she came to be the queen of wound therapies.

Beth Haley is a founder of Making a Difference in Uganda where her organisation provides amazing volunteer nursing opportunities that range from medical outreaches, education, women’s empowerment and caring for young people living in the slums. Her story is inspirational. A nurse of 33 years having undertaken volunteer nursing experiences for over 25 years, she found herself in Uganda and so began a love story with a country and her people. So, in 2017, she founded Making a Difference in Uganda which partners with local organisations to empower, provide hope and support those people who need it.

The Vivian Bullwinkel story is one that quintessentially demonstrates what nursing is all about. Patient advocacy, sometimes at great personal cost, and one of everlasting camaraderie. Arlene Bennett, President of the Australian Nurses Memorial Centre, has joined us before when she talked to us here at the Nursing and Midwifery Emporium about how the ANMC honours past, present and future nurses. Arlene joins Sue once again but this time to take us through Vivian's profoundly terrible yet inspiring story of bravery and advocacy.

So, here's the thing. Nurses and midwives account for 50% of the global health workforce. Did you know that? That's a lot! We're quite a force. What intrigues me more about that is that while we're 50% of the workforce, our representation at the policymaking, political level or the boardroom is... at best, scant. Our role bears witness to the real experiences of people who accessing health and community services at an international level across all geopolitical and social spectrums. Truly, we see it all. So why is our nursing and midwifery voice not being heard where decisions about how health and community services are delivered? There a lots of reasons, but one is opportunity. You can't just saunter in to a boardroom and just making decisions. Australian federal MP, Ged Kearney is a proud Australian example of one of our tribe who transitioned from nurse to policymaker. But Ged's journey was long, so how do we get our start in having the nursing and midwifery voice heard? Sue chats with one of our regulars here at the Nursing & Midwifery Emporium's podcast, Wendy McIntosh because she's got a solution for us that you might not have expected: Rotary for Nurses!

Elissa O'Keefe a a queen at leveraging this little thing we call nursing, most notably in the world of cosmetic nursing. It could easily be said she's quite the pioneer in this clinical niche. Elissa has done a great many things as a nurse including a sexual health nurse and educator, but it's cosmetic nursing that's her passion and where she's made her mark. Elissa is the lead author of the first ever Australian standards and scope of practice document for cosmetic nursing, has published in peer-reviewed journals both nationally and internationally and is often called on for comment in the industry. She now has an award winning company that was born when, during her career in cosmetic medicine practice, Elissa realised that there was a need for flexible, high quality, post-graduate continuing professional development for health professionals with regard to lasers and other light-based therapies that was evidence based and pitched at the high level required of this complex landscape. Elissa is also the Head of Clinical Operations and a prescriber for Cosmetic Skin Therapies. So, Sue catches up with Elissa to find out more about her nursing journey

If you ever wanted to know how far the rabbit hole for our mandate as patient advocate goes, then Toni’s story will answer that question. After working internationally, she started her Master of Bioethics and took a position at Bundaberg Base Hospital as the Nurse Unit Manager of a small ICU. The small country ICU appealed as she thought it would allow plenty of time to study. This was not to be the case when surgeon Dr Jayant Patel came to Bundaberg Base Hospital. For two years Toni raised concerns about his practice, outcomes and behaviour but these fell on deaf ears. In fact discrediting Toni was apparently easier than addressing issues surrounding Dr Patel. Sue talks to Toni about what whistleblowing in nursing looks like, and what the future holds, as Toni wants to continue to contribute to the profession of nursing by advocacy for patients and nurses by improving patient safety and in the education of nurses in Australia.

Arlene Bennett is currently the President of the Australian Nurses Memorial Centre in Melbourne and is a member of the Finance committee, the Marketing and Fundraising Committee and she Chairs the History and Heritage Committee. Arlene is a profound advocate for memorialising those of our counterparts who found themselves in unspeakable circumstances in World War II. These amazing women are memorialised today in a unique way: through scholarships advocating nursing advancement, research and education. Arlene trained as a nurse at the Royal Melbourne Hospital in 1981. She holds certificates in Coronary Care and Midwifery nursing and completed a Graduate Diploma in Adult Education and Training at the University of Melbourne. She has held positions as a Charge Nurse and Nurses Educator at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. She is a member of the Royal Melbourne Graduate Nurses Association and is on the RMGNA Committee. She is has also been a member of the Royal Melbourne Hospital’s History and Arts Committee for several years .She is the treasurer of the Lemnos - Gallipoli Commemorative Committee.

Clinical supervision is something that I've actually never had much exposure to. And after listening to the fabulous Wendy McIntosh, I really wonder why. I know that clinical supervision is prevalent in the nursing niche of mental health. Given my background is entirely perioperative and emergency, then it stands to reason that this is the reason clinical supervision has missed my professional experience. Dr Wendy McIntosh, from Davaar Consulting has over 30 years as a health professional (clinical, education and research), 25 of those years in mental health. Areas of specific interest and passion for Wendy include: professional supervision, professional boundaries, professional identity, links between childhood trauma and mental illness and workplace bullying. Wendy has joined us before on the Nursing and Midwifery Emporium Podcast and joins us again this time to enlighten us on clinical supervision

Lilliana Levada is an experienced healthcare professional, patient safety advocate and a visionary entrepreneur. Her professional experiences have led her to work in every role with the perioperative environment, publish her work, present at national and international forums, and work as a lead reviewer for ACORN Standards. She is passionate about the way nurses influence patient outcomes, about what we mean to them and to each other, and likes to see how science research translates into meaningful practice improvements. She presents regularly for the Nursing CPD Institute also.

The fabulous Sue chats with Chris Carlin from Master Your Money Now, who are qualified financial planners and mortgage brokers specialising in helping nurses save for their first home, pay down debts, protect their loved ones, sort out their cashflow and build financial wealth so they can retire at a time they choose. Gold. Chris Carlin is the founder of Master Your Money Now, the only Australian financial services organisation dedicated to caring for nurses and midwives. Chris is passionate about helping nurses and midwives achieve their financial goals and live out their dream lifestyle. Chris is married to Natalie, a proud New Zealander and paediatric nurse.

Yep, there's an app for everything and now there's a nursing app for helping you survive your shift! This is a nursing app that aims to help stave off burnout and enhance your wellbeing. Athol Hann has created this by considering what he calls, the "touch points" for nurses and midwives that create stress. It aims to help with the key hot spots for nurses: unpredictable schedules, poor lifestyle habits, pay errors, difficulty unwinding after work and disconnection from our teams. Fundamentally, Athol wants this nursing app to help us focus on self-care. One of my most favourite quotes is delivered by Athol in this interview beautifully, when he talks about self-care: "Self care is about your giving the best of you, not what's left of you" Athol Hann is the founder of Fwards as well as a Clinical Emergency Nurse. From a dairy farm in country Victoria, he found a calling to help and learn more about people. Starting off his nursing career at Royal Perth Hospital, Athol has had the opportunity to work in a diverse array of settings across the country. Getting through the otherside of burnout, Athol found a deep desire to help others avoid the emotional turmoil of going through burnout. This has led to the creation of the nursing app fwards and The Fwards Thinking Nurse Facebook group. The nursing app and facebook group work alongside each other to support nurses to manage the demands of shift work and track how shift work affects their health and well-being.

Leslie Cornwell is a Certified Nurse Midwife who owns and runs Mid Michigan Midwifery. Leslie has been passionate about giving women choices around birth having practiced across all birth settings, including hospitals, birth centres and home. Having had three prior home births herself and running past midwifery practices, the power of normal birth on a family's foundation became her professional mission. For our non-US listeners, a Certified Nurse Midwife is the US equivalent of an Eligible Midwife here in Australia. Essentially, a midwife who has met the skills and qualification requirements to practice independently in their own private practice. Leslie completed the requirements requiring in the United States to become a Certified Nurse Midwife in 2012 and been part of birth world since 2008. The breadth of her experience has given her the opportunity to appreciate each setting's strengths and options to help families make best decision for themselves. Birth is a normal process and many women are most comfortable birthing in their home and Leslie finds joy in the privilege of seeing instinctual birth that is rarely seen in a hospital setting. Leslie perceives her role and her honour to help women have options for personalized childbirth. I chat with Leslie to explore what she loves about independently practicing as a Certified Nurse Midwife in her state of Michigan in the US, what brought her to this point as well as the challenges of this role which transcend healthcare systems

So let's talk Nursing Professional Boundaries It's a disconcerting topic, if I'm honest: nursing professional boundaries. While there are certainly a few psychopaths amongst us in the nursing and midwifery profession, research tells us they are few and far between. So, therefore, it stands to reason that while it happens, none of us go out of our way to violate our nursing professional boundaries. Yes, as the fabulous Dr Wendy McIntosh reveals to us, sometimes it's hard to know how our gestures, words and actions can be perceived by others until we see them played out before us. That is indeed Wendy's specialty. She is an educator with a special interest in nursing professional boundaries and works with many people who have experienced a boundary transgression. So, Sue takes a deep dive into boundaries, transgression and professional supervision and Wendy reveals the most amazing four questions we can ask ourselves about a given interaction to analyse whether we have indeed crossed a line.

Episode #20: Emily's question on Career Crossroads

Ok, well there'll be no surprise to regular listeners that perioperative nursing is absolutely my bag. God, how I love it. Now that I'm doing other things, I pine for it. Other people would ask me at dinner parties what I did for a living and I'd say "I work in operating theatres" and there'd be instant fascination. I'd tell my favourite stories - gross, hilarious, bloody - generally gratitious. Always satisfying. Of course, there was the odd goat who'd say "Oh, don't hand instruments to the doctor?" and I'd feel an almost irresistable urge to "accidentally" knock the glass of red wine they'd just sanctimoniously poured themselves. There's a lot to this gig of ours: it's surprisingly vast and complex. It's no surprise that I could lecture you until I'm blue in the face as to why perioperative nursing is so more than handing instruments. But you what - I'm going to leave that to the true expert. The fabulous CEO of the Australian College of periOperative Nurses (ACORN), Rebecca East.

The Nurse Practitioner options resonates beautifully with the "Clinician" pathway when we find ourselves faced with the Classic 3 options: stay a clinician, become an educator or follow the leadership path. Advanced practice with expert knowledge with a whole new scope of practice and most notably, a plethora of totally different ways to deliver care to your clinical specialty patients. But the nurse practitioner pathway is a bit mystical. How do you go about? What's the expertise level required to gain entry into the program? How many jobs are there really as a Nurse Practitioner? Is my specialty knowledge relevant as a Nurse Practitioner? Am I too old for this now? Well, peeps, enter Leanne Boase. As the president of the Australian College of Nurse Practitioners, she's joined me to demystify how you might go about becoming and NP

So, I think Rural Area Nursing would be incredibly fascinating. The destinations are diverse, the patient mix is diverse, the culture is vastly different from that which we see in large tertiary referral metropolitan facilities. It presents an amazing opportunity to advance skills or work while you travel. In fact, Elissa Slingsby from Curis Recruitment is an expert in rural area nursing and finding great options for nurses and midwives to find short and long term permanent placements. Elissa says that there are two groups of nursing mainly attracted to rural area nursing, as well as regional placements: those who have graduated about 5 years ago and are looking to advance their skillset in a challenging way or empty nesters who are looking to combine work and travel. Elissa helps both of those demographics finds a great opportunity.

Here's everything you need to know about Travel CPD by emoji:

One of my most favourite mantras is that business and healthcare can be an awkward mix. As nurses, advocating for our patients, we feel that in every single clinical niche that we may touch. Aged Care. Acute care. Community and disability care. And, dermatology nursing is no different. So, if you wanted to know how to balance that tension and stay true to your nursing values, Sue Walker brings you the ultimate evangelist. She chats with Sue Woodford (yep, a lot of Sue's in this conversation). Sue was a trailblazer in dermatology nursing. She's been nursing for 50 years. She exemplifies what it means to balance that tension between business and healthcare. And delivers exceptional, person-centred outcomes for her patients.

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Georgina McGrath is an independent nurse. She functions as a clinical nurse consultant in the community sector. It's the dream of many of us: we have a body of knowledge, passion for deploying that knowledge to be the architecture of real change in our patients and doing that without interference from bureaucracy or other professionals. But how do you actually do that. Well, Georgia has done just that with McGrath Nursing. Georgie functions as an independent nurse, in the role of clinical nurse consultant in the disability and rehab space. Georgia walks us through the day in the life of the independent nurse, what nursing interventions looks like in her clinical niche and the challenges of not just working in the business as a nurse, but also on the business to ensure the good work she can deliver to clients (not patients, Nicole, not patients!!!) for the foreseeable future. Sue and I get into what it's like to function independently in our field of nursing.

So balancing nursing and nutrition. A hateful task. In my 25 years as a registered nurse, I've done a lot of shift work. Not as much as some, but still, I know the pull to the vending machine at 0100 and the desperate toast at 0500 that is all about survival and nothing to do with nutrition.  We know lifestyle choices make a profound difference to our likelihood to acquire chronic disease. What we can't seem to agree on is what those lifestyle choice are. Anne Evans-Murray holds that tension brilliantly. As nurses, we have all held that tension: there's an evidence-based line we must hold yet our intuition tells us another truth.  And it's not for nothing.  A recent peer-reviewed study revealed that nursing intuition is as reliable as any vital sign, and should be considered the fifth vital sign.  This challenging interview from Sue reveals a conflicted yet profound message about nutrition and nursing.  How do we manage our own nutrition, given our perilous carcinogenic journey with night shift work.  And what message do we send to our patients when educating them.  Sue gets into just that with Anne in this podcast.

The new graduate nurse of 2018 onwards are well supported through the trials and tribulations of the experience of being a novice thanks to Ben Jenkins and his podcast, New Grad Radio. Ben offers a soft landing for novice practitioners by telling his raw story as a new graduate nurse in the Intensive Care Unit in a tertiary referral hospital in Queensland. What's brilliant about Ben's reality TV - no wait: podcast - episodes, are that they are relatable, not just for the new graduate nurse, but that nurse that I know is out there who's terrified of being a novice again. I've always had a pull to doing midwifery, yet once I was "experienced" and had some kudos as a perioperative nurse, the idea of being a novice again was less than appealing. Ben cuts through that by sharing his experiences and giving us all the confidence we need to get out there and challenge ourselves, no matter where we are in our career spectrum.

Evelyn works with in the space of dealing with bullying . Her expertise is immense. Which is great, because our problem with nurse bullying is immense. Evelyn M. Field OAM is a practising psychologist in Melbourne and a Fellow of the Australian Psychological Society. She provides regular training to schools and organizations, as well as training mental health professionals. She was as an Accredited Speaking Member of National Speakers Association of Australia. She has spoken in New Zealand, Belgium, Spain, USA, Vietnam, Norway, Copenhagen, Wales, Italy and Israel. She is one of the media spokespersons for the Australian Psychological Society and has done over 800 media interviews on a wide range of topics. She appears regularly on television, including the "Today Show", "Good Morning Australia", "A Current Affair", "Seven thirty Report", "Today Tonight Show", Channel Seven News. She was Resident Psychologist for Channel Ten's "9 AM" show with David and Kim with a focus on relationships and current affairs. Evelyn joins Sue Walker to talk about bullying in nursing

So let me start this post by saying, this guy is the definition of #NurseGoals.  When Sue and I started this podcast and we wanted a category for a certain group of nurses who just great things, then this is the type of nurse we had in mind.  Namely, Luke Yokota has been nominated as Young Australian of the Year 2020.  That comes off the back of the work that Luke has recently done with campaigning for men in nursing.  Luke is the Chair of the Australian College of Nursing's Working Party for Men in Nursing and has been instrumental in the development on an eBook which seeks to address the barriers with the recruitment and retention of male nurses.  He shares with us today everything that he is doing to encourage blokes to come into our fabulous profession, because, as his mantra indicates: it's ok to care

Forensic nursing.... Truly, so many questions. What nursing interventions are on your menu as a forensic nurse. How do you cope with the fact that you know these people you're caring for have participated in violent and sometimes reprehensible conduct that have likely ruined their victims lives? How do you even cope with the curiousity of it all? How disconcerting is it when your patient comes with an entourage of custodial officers? Is it.....scary????? Well, in the interests of nurses and midwives exploring what career transition options might be out there, this seemed like a no brainer to explore given it's so foreign. So Sue hit Tanya Mularczyk and Sandra Dewhirst up and asked them all the questions you wanted to know about Forensic Nursing

This week, Sue and I get into career transition.  Nic talks to Paul Armstrong, a leading career transition from Inner Sanctum Consulting, an expert who has had his own experience with career transition answers all the questions we have about "what's next"?  He challenges us to think more broadly about our skill set.  Nurses are pretty amazing creatures and we possess skills that we take for granted that other industries invest years and thousands of professional development dollars in growing in their own employees.  Nurses can inherently think laterally: linear thinking is not useful when we're presented with a patient load - we must triage, prioritise and time manage appropriately.  We innately know how to manage high pressure situations: how many professionals come to work with life and death situations ever at our periphery.  Nurses must be comfortable with the fact that any one of their patients may arrest out of the blue.  We know communication: we talk to all manner of people everyday - we might be nursing the homeless guy in Room 3 and the CEO of a large multinational company in Room 4: that takes skill.  So Paul walks us through seeing our skill set as transferrable, as opposed to clinically subspecialised.

Nicole Nash-Arnold from Nurse Manager HQ is our second cohost of This Nursing Life podcast. Nic's all consuming passion is nursing culture. We used to be great at comaraderie. We used to be excellent at having fun, breaking rules and suffering the wrath of intimidating nursing supervisors who stalked our corridors. If anything shows our heritage, it's the show Call the Midwife. We're at risk of losing our sense of community and it's high time to take control. Nic's key message is take control of our destiny: we're more powerful than we think. Burnout is on the rise. A recent survey in the NHS revealed nursing burnout is on the rise and it's leading to experienced nurses leaving our industry. Meanwhile, workloads increase with the ageing population and clinical acuity compounds that with ever increasing chronic disease. Gone are the days of having a patient load of fit, well middle-aged post-operative patients. Now, it's octogenarians with multiple comordibities. The nursing workforce is diminishing with the average age of nurses being in their late forties. Our health services are left with no choice but to expect us to do more with less.

Today, the Nursing & Midwifery Emporium takes some time out from our usual format of interviewing experts as we thought it was high time we introduce ourselves! First cab of the co-hosting rank, is the fabulous Sue Walker from the Nursing CPD Institute. Sue started out in the world of nursing CPD when she and a colleague identified a raging gap for nurses and midwives that seemed to exist no matter what clinical niche they went into: aged care, community and primary care, acute care, obstetrics.

Gareth Edwards joins us to discuss the power of laughter yoga on defeating our nemesis, nursing burnout. I had absolutely no idea what that meant. When I was researching what Gareth Edwards did and read he was the expert on laughter yoga, a very specific story popped into my head. My previous boss, a 60+ year old emergency physician who sported an impressive belly, was treated to a fabulous weekend to Olivia Newton John’s sensational wellness resort, Gaia Retreat, for their wedding anniversary. He’s more of a indulgent lunch, loads of red wine, that morphs into a long dinner kind of guy. He also has absolutely no filter. So you can imagine his disappointment on arrival at this sublime resort that they were alcohol free. Fast forward, 12 hours, and he’s unwillingly dragged to an actual yoga session with his wife at sunrise. As he contorted himself into downward dog, and he turns purple, he twists towards his wife and blurts, “F@#k, Soph, I’m gonna fart!”. Poor Sophie tried to ignore and pretend it never happened, but eventually the both of them unfurled themselves, fell onto the floor fits of laughter. That sounds like laughter yoga to me….. Gareth Edwards, a.k.a. The Laughter Guy is writer, musician and coach who is all about living life less seriously. Take his 1 Minute Laughter Challenge here: https://gareth-edwards.com/laugh/ And this podcast demonstrates how unbelievable the social glue of laughter can be for productivity, wellness and great nursing culture

Dr Pam Savage has an extensive background in clinical Nursing, education, and remote area Nursing both in Australia and overseas. As a Lawyer and Clinician, this background is brought to her role as adjunct Lecturer to undergraduate and postgraduate students as well as Aboriginal Health Workers. Pam is a Barrister at Bar (NSW) and a published author and her book “Law for Student Nurses: applied principles” is now in its third edition. A major focus of her current work has been designing undergraduate and postgraduate law courses for Nurses and community health workers. As a regular contributor to the Nursing CPD Institute, her blogs and webinars address issues of professional and legal governance that have relevance to Nurses working in many environments.

Shona Grant from Pink Collar Recruitment joins Nic Nash-Arnold to reveal the secrets to landing your dream job. Shona & Nic dive into what nurses self-limiting beliefs are around our careers, the mistakes we're most likely to make and what to do if you're wanting to apply for a new role but your relationship with your current NUM (aka: your reference!) has soured. Sue & Nic, as usual, chat afterwards about Shona's services and the brilliant world of involving a recruitment consultant to your career planning team.

Nic and Sue chat with Mark Aitken from Nurse and Midwife Support. We take a deep dive into the Nurse and Midwife Support Service, the concept of self-care, and real strategies on how to do that.