Welcome to a new season of Real Nurse Stories. In this episode, I interview Teresa, a nurse and an entrepreneur from Kansas in the midwest of America. Teresa is a vocal major who never expected to become a nurse and have a 32-year-long career in nursing! Teresa shares her journey into nursing and becoming the CEO of her own hospice that started as a $6000 investment and grew to over $3 million. Teresa candidly shares her experience of major depression and what she learnt about herself and how to prioritise her self-care along the way. Teresa is the founder of the movement 'Nurses feed their yo ..read more

It has been a tough two years for the nursing profession. Many nurses are considering leaving the profession and many are reporting symptoms of burnout and exhaustion. As a profession, we need to acknowledge these struggles, listen to nurses' experiences and importantly take urgent action to support nurses globally as we cannot afford to lose nurses. We all have a part to play in using our sphere of influence. This Podcast is my way of using my sphere of influence as both a registered practising nurse and a trained professional coach. In this episode, I talk about why as nurses we struggle to ..read more

In this episode, I interview Iris who is currently a Grad nurse on placement in Rural Western Australia. Iris never wanted to be a nurse and always thought that she would go into paramedicine but became hooked on Nursing We cover her journey into nursing and her experience working as a Graduate nurse in a remote and rural site in Western Australia. Iris's interview is energetic and her adventurous, bubbly and resilient personality shines through in this episode. She describes how she took a leap of faith, taking a graduate placement in a rural area and has developed her nursing and critical th ..read more

Cynarra, always knew that she wanted to be a nurse, nursing runs in her blood. Her mum was a nurse and Cynarra grew up with an older sister with complex disability needs. These early influences led Cynarra to follow a career in disability nursing and more recently teaching nurses as a nurse lecturer about how to communicate and care for clients who are living with a disability. Helping them to see the person and learn how to communicate so that as nurses we can understand their needs and how best to support clients living in the community. We talk about the importance of preceptorship, clinica ..read more

In this episode, I interview Emillee who is currently working as a Psychiatric Liason nurse in ED in regional Western Australia. Emillee always wanted to be a Doctor and entered into nursing thinking that she would become a Doctor at a later point. She wasn't able to get a grad position and was offered a post in a private mental health clinic as a newly qualified nurse.  She came to love working as a mental health nurse and has experience working with patients in an inpatient, outpatient, mother and baby unit, community mental health, and in the emergency department in her current role. E ..read more

In this episode, I interview Nurse Jacqui as she is affectionately known by the clients that she works with. Jacqui is a passionate nurse, a confidence coach, champion of carers and a BeYOUtiful Mentor. Jacqui shares her journey into why she became a nurse and her journey into entrepreneurship as the founder of Heartplace and BeYOUtiful mentor Jacqui candidly shares her experience whilst working as a nurse, of compassion fatigue and burnout as a result of a mindset of "work hard then rest". Jacqui recognised that she was not filling her self care compassion cup along the way until it was compl ..read more

In this episode, I interview Nurse Sonia Goodwin who is a passionate nurse leader, entrepreneur, CEO and founder of Sunny Street. Sunny street is a Doctor & Nurse-led outreach service providing primary healthcare and complex coordination services for homeless and vulnerable individuals and families across the Sunshine Coast, Brisbane and Fraser Coast regions. Sunny Street has a mission to facilitate community connections and improve access to health care options. Sonia talks about how she became a nurse and then had a geronimo moment when she took a massive leap of faith in response to a q ..read more

Samatha's story is the final episode of 2020 where I started out to interview a nurse a month as part of the 2020 International Year of the Nurse and Midwife. Most of my interviews have been with nurses working in Australia and it seemed only right to include the experience of an Australian nurse who identifies as being an Aboriginal woman. This experience needs to be heard and understood and more importantly, storytelling is a large part of Aboriginal culture. Samantha describes  "being caught between two worlds, a love of my people and a love of the frontline and trying to find the bala ..read more

Grace's story is one of my favourites so far! Grace is a student nurse studying to become a registered nurse. Her journey into nursing was inspired by a condition that she was born with as a premature 26-week old baby. Her love of human biology is testament to the great person-centred care that she received from her Paediatric team who educated and involved Grace about her condition with age-appropriate education throughout her childhood. Grace talks about her experience as a young 17-year-old studying to become an enrolled nurse and some of the challenges that she faced. Grace had a three-wee ..read more

Athol grew up on a dairy farm and never dreamed of becoming a nurse. He had a love of anatomy and human biology and thought that he was going to study exercise science. His Grandmother suggested Nursing to him and the rest is history as they say! In this episode we talk about Athol's nursing journey, men in nursing, his struggles with burnout and how understanding his 'why' helped him to recover from burnout and resume his nursing career after three years of pain and turmoil. Athol's story is a great example of how seeking to understand who you are as a person and what drives you to become a n ..read more