Summer 2020-21

Taking time to rejuvenate and reflect

When going through periods of change it can be integral to take some time to reflect and rejuvenate, our Stakeholder Engagement Manager Mark Aitken looks at why and how you can do this. He also introduces this bumper edition of the newsletter and a special new member of the Nurse & Midwife Support team. Read more.

Cally’s Story: My Nursing Journey

Veteran Nurse Cally Berryman is an incredible nurse that has left an indelible mark on nursing and midwifery in Australia throughout her 40 year career. She is a passionate advocate for the health and wellbeing of nurses and midwives and was one of the key team members that developed the Nurse & Midwife Support program from the beginning. She has had a wonderfully varied career and continues to contribute to the profession that she loves. Read her story.

Creating Positive Changes

Creating habits that assist us with goal attainment, focus and intention can be really helpful when faced with change and making decisions that affect career and life. Registered Midwife Celeste Pinney looks at how to create and maintain changes in a sustainable way. Read More.

Early Career Nursing and Midwifery — Finding your path

Finding the path that works for you can be a mixed bag for many people in the early stages of their career. Maddi Munro, an early career nurse shares her experiences of developing a career plan, utilising nurse mentors and how being sponsored to attend a career defining conference has helped her shape her career while feeling supported. Read More.

Does nursing or midwifery get you out of bed in the morning? 4 questions to ask if not

Nicole Nash-Arnold, registered nurse and coach shares her advice for nurses and midwives feeling unhappy and lost in their career. Nicole explains the Japanese philosophy ikigai. Read more to learn about this fascinating philosophy that may be just what you need to shift your career. Read more.

Podcast — Life Phases and Career Transition with Maddi Munro, Helen Pentecost and Elle Brown

In this episode Mark talks to two inspiring nurses and a passionate midwife at different stages of their career. They share insights, reflections, tips, strategies and resources that have assisted them to make decisions about their life phases and career transitions. Listen here.

Taking time to rejuvenate and reflect

by Mark Aitken

Welcome to the Summer 2020/2021 edition of the Nurse & Midwife Support newsletter.

To say that 2020 was a rough year would be an understatement. I don’t need to remind you about the challenges and impacts many nurses and midwives experienced and continue to face. You lived it! Some challenges were shared and others were unique to you. Whatever your experience of 2020 I hope you are OK and have had or are planning a well-earned break.

Don’t know about y’all but I could really go for some precedented times.

— Simon Holland (@simoncholland) August 18, 2020

As we start exploring 2021, you may be experiencing a mixture of feelings about what you have experienced and what may still be to come. I certainly can’t wait for “precedented times” and I imagine you can’t either. The ongoing feeling of ‘what next?’ can be particularly exhausting.

While there continue to be many things that are out of our personal control, we can still try to identify elements of our lives that we can control. For example, you could try to improve your health through:

• exercise
• healthy eating
• mindfulness
• sleep.

You can also give us a call any time. Whether you need to debrief after bad day or you are in the midst of a larger life or career event, you can call us anytime on 1800 667 877.

Taking time out

If you feel exhausted, give yourself time to decompress, rest, restore and renew your energy. I recently wrote a piece on the value of taking time to reflect on your experience of 2020. I considered the piece for a long time. It’s been a slow process because good reflection takes purpose, time and attention. Like many, 2020 had me caught up in the doing and the emotion of my experience. As I look back on last year I’ve found it useful to reflect and make sense of all 2020 has served up.

Taking a break from work is vital to restoring your energy and wellbeing. Planning and booking a holiday are a big part of the joy of a break. As Australia opens our borders, more travel options may have become available to you. It is a great opportunity to explore our wonderful country. I recently read Welcome to Country, Professor Marcia Langton AM’s travel guide to indigenous Australia.

It reminded me of the long and rich history of our country and the varied ways we can experience and celebrate indigenous culture. I’m planning time off to experience some of what this country has to offer and immerse myself in new experiences. I hope you to have a holiday planned or one to look forward to.

Navigating through life phases

This edition of our newsletter is on life phases and career transition. Important topics to explore as many of you may be contemplating change in 2021. How you navigate life and career milestones, opportunities and challenges can define how your career plays out.

Planning is key to success and ensuring you make decisions that serve your best interests. Accessing the support and guidance of a career coach, mentor or respected friend and colleague can be a useful way to assist you to toss around the options, explore the possibilities and decide what to do next. It may be a new job, a promotion, study, a new career direction, spending more time with family or your retirement. If you are thinking about these issues and want support or to talk it through with a nurse or midwife please contact Nurse & Midwife Support on 1800 667 877.

In this issue . . .

In the newsletter we asked nurses and midwives to share their wisdom, experience, tips and resources hoping they will assist you navigate the complexities of making decisions related to your life and career.

A veteran nurse, Cally Berryman shares the story of her long, interesting and dedicated career. From her early days of hospital nursing training and the friends and colleagues supporting her success to higher education and her PHD that assisted to shape support services for nurses and midwives. Cally continues to support nurses and midwives through her work at Nurse & Midwife Support.

Celeste Pinney, a midwife passionate about health and wellbeing provides information on the importance of creating habits that assist us with goal attainment, focus and intention, important elements when faced with change and making decisions that affect career and life.

Maddi Munro, early career nurse shares her story about how developing a career plan, utilising nurse mentors and being supported to attend a career defining conference have helped her shape her career and feel supported.

Nicole Nash-Arnold registered nurse and coach shares her advice for nurses and midwives feeling unhappy and lost in their career. Nicole states the answer might lie in a framework from Japanese philosophy — ikigai. Read more to learn about this fascinating philosophy that may be just what you need to shift your career.

Podcast

On our summer newsletter podcast Your Health Matters, I talk to two inspiring nurses and a passionate midwife at different stages of their career. They share insights, reflections, tips, strategies and resources that have assisted them to make decisions about their life phases and career transitions.

On behalf of the team at Nurse & Midwife Support, I would like to acknowledge and thank YOU. The incredible work nurses and midwives have done in 2020 this International Year of the Nurse and the Midwife has been admirable and humbling. The global pandemic catapulted our professions into the spotlight, reminding the world that nurses and midwives are highly educated, agile, skilled and vital to the health and wellbeing of others.

2021 may not have started the way many wished. With COVID-19 cases bouncing around in some parts of Australia, borders closing and opening, Christmas and New Year plans changed or stalled, holiday makers stuck far from home and events in many other countries unsettling. Many remain exhausted. That longed for holiday and rest may be still a dream.

I found it comforting to stay local and enjoy the staycation (a holiday spent in one's home country rather than abroad, or one spent at home and involving day trips to local attractions). I’ve enjoyed reading, gardening, spending time with family and friends, listening to podcasts and long chats with those who make my heart sing. Best of all I adopted a new puppy that has me besotted — and so did my teammate Lauren!

We're all experiencing 'puppy love' at Nurse & Midwife Support.

If you have your own bundle of joy send me a pic we would love to share it with our community to spread some joy.

I’m being optimistic about some “precented times” appearing on the horizon soon. I hope you have found some joy, peace and rest in your neck of the woods. If you need someone to chat to Nurse & Midwife Support is available 24/7 on 1800 667 877.

Mark Aitken RN

Stakeholder Engagement Manager

Nurse & Midwife Support

By Dr Cally Berryman

Cally is an incredible nurse that has left (and continues to leave) an indelible mark on nursing and midwifery in Australia throughout her 40-year career. She is a passionate advocate for the health and wellbeing of nurses and midwives and was one of the key team members that developed the Nurse & Midwife Support program from the beginning. She has had a wonderfully varied career and continues to contribute to the profession that she loves. This is her story.

I have worked as a registered nurse for over 40 years in the acute, drug and alcohol, rehabilitation, academic and community health nursing areas. I am also a strong advocate for nurses and student nurses, I enjoy the opportunity that working at Nurse & Midwife Support brings me to be able to advocate and give back to this wonderful profession that has given me so much.

Getting started

I started my nursing career at the Alfred Hospital. In those days we were paid a small amount of money and lived in the Nurses’ home. This was comforting for my mother as she felt I was being supervised and safe. I loved my time with the Alfred Hospital and grew up quickly in the student nurse role. We had a great deal of responsibility even as student nurses. For example, in our 2nd year we were placed ‘in charge’ of rehabilitation wards at Caulfield Hospital as part of our student rotation.

I was in Group T and made several wonderful friends in the group. I am still close to quite a number. I met my husband on a ‘blind date’ when at the Alfred. We are still together, have two children and now grandchildren. The Alfred Hospital has been a wonderful opportunity for me.

Evolving with life and career

Over the next few years family commitments altered my nursing career aspirations. During this time I worked in a part- time capacity in a variety of surgical, medical, geriatric and community positions while raising a family.

An exciting career focus became evident when I worked as a charge nurse at Moreland Hall: a drug and alcohol detox, rehab and counselling facility — where I learnt much about drug and alcohol dependence. I have worked in the drug and alcohol area for over 20 years — including on steering committees, in prisons, community health nursing, as a counsellor, academic and program coordinator and now with Nurse and Midwife Support program.

Finding different passions

Another part of my nursing journey was discovering the area of Acquired Brain Injury. My Master’s thesis Teacher Perspectives: The head injured student returns to mainstream school exposed me to this community issue. I worked in conjunction with a number of organisations to assist students with Acquired Brain Injury to better return to school with adequate supports.

I loved community nursing and working with clients with dependencies. It was an honour to see clients embrace positive changes in their lives. At a later stage I entered academia and loved teaching nurse students. I became the coordinator of Graduate Diploma of Substance Abuse Studies at Victoria University.

Immersing myself in education

I loved teaching nurses and for me it was a natural progression to continue studying and as such I completed my PhD. My PhD topic was Nurses Drug and Alcohol Dependence: Creating understanding. This study started another passion in a different direction. I was motivated to assist nurses with substance abuse issues. As a consequence of my PhD research I was invited to assist in the development of the Nurse Midwives Health Program (NMHP). NMHP is a program for nurses and midwives with drug and alcohol problems that continues to run in Victoria and was an early service that in part lead to the development of Nurse & Midwife Support.

Reinvention is key

One of the wonderful aspects about nursing is that any nurse can reinvent themselves in different nursing areas. The range is truly gobsmacking, nurses are everywhere.

In my case I was fortunate to have experienced medical, surgical, community, drug and alcohol and academic nursing. One major factor is how nurses are educated; the transition of nurses into universities has created enormous advantages for nurses to be true professionals and to be valued as professionals in our own right.

I am currently employed as a nurse counsellor for Nurse and Midwife Support, a role which I really enjoy and has kept me in this career that I love. Nursing is a wonderful journey; it has been such an honour to be surrounded with extraordinary caring nurse colleagues, making a difference to those in our care.

Get in touch

If you’d like to chat to Cally and her amazing colleagues about issues you might be facing in your career, give us a call on 1800 667 877 or email us.

By Celeste Pinney, Registered Midwife

Change is inevitable. Why not grab it by the horns and use positive habit formation to make it work for YOU?

Nurses and midwives inevitably encounter life changes and transitions during their working life. Starting a family, changing job, retiring or confronting other unexpected difficulties such as illness, relationships or financial challenges — any of these can leave you feeling overwhelmed and out of control.

You can’t always know when life will throw you a curve ball, but proactively preparing for life’s challenges with deliberate intentions and healthy habits may assist you to weather the storm. Forming healthy habits that benefit your mental, emotional and physical wellbeing can help you to feel more in control of your life and your choices during a time of change. Instead of feeling stuck and overwhelmed, falling back on ‘automated’ healthy habits that you have developed means you can engage in self-care that assists you to feel more resilient, strong, and healthy.

Let’s take a closer look at habits…

What is a habit?

A habit is a behaviour that is usually repeated unconsciously in response to an environmental cue. For example, leaving your running shoes at the front door is a ‘cue’ for you to go for a jog or a walk. Having chocolate biscuits on the bench is a cue for you to eat them! Removing a trigger for an unhealthy behaviour and replacing it with a healthy one is an effective way to change a habit.

Habits are important because they free you from having to make constant decisions about routine daily activities like brushing teeth, driving, and getting dressed.

Gretchen Rubin, author of Better than before: Mastering the habits of our everyday lives tells us that habits are "the invisible architecture of everyday life”. During times of stress, or when it is challenging to sustain the attention needed to persevere with newly adopted behaviours, people usually revert to an old learned behaviour, demonstrating an attention bias for ingrained habits that have become the ‘default mode’.

Rubin explains that this is natural human behaviour, and not something to judge yourself for — there’s an old saying in neuroscience, ‘neurons that fire together wire together’.

Knowledge is power, understanding this can be the first step towards positive habit change. Rubin’s research shows that habits develop easily, tend to be self-stabilizing, and can override good intentions. This is especially the case when you feel stressed or fatigued.

How can we change habits?

• Rather than trying to ‘get rid’ of unhealthy habits, research has found that replacing them with healthy ones is key.


• Repetition of a behaviour leads to new habit formation, and especially at the beginning of trying to make a change.


• Take small steps, don’t try to change too much at once, and make the change as simple and enjoyable as possible. For example: Wendy wants to stop watching TV and instead get fit. She starts by putting the skipping rope at the front door as the ‘cue’ to start skipping. She also makes a specific plan to jump for 3 minutes 2 days a week when she gets home from work, and gradually increases the time spent skipping from there.


• Doing an activity at the same time each day also helps to form new habits more easily. For example, eating a piece of fruit with breakfast or going for a walk every day before work helps build the action into your routine.

If a healthy behaviour can be made habitual, it is less likely to be disrupted when motivation diminishes, which is often the case during times of stress or big life changes.

“We have found that when people are distracted or feeling particularly tired or overwhelmed, they fall back on good habits as well as bad habits” — Wendy Wood, Professor of Psychology and Business at USC and author of Good Habits, Bad Habits: The Science of making positive changes that stick.

Big life changes can also be a golden opportunity for us to create new positive habits. A divorce, an illness, or a move to a new job can be good motivation for us to really learn to take better care of ourselves and improve our diet, fitness, or spend more time with ourselves in healthier ways.

How long does it take to build a habit?

Research has shown that changing habits takes approximately 2–3 months. This might seem like a long time, but in the grand scheme of life, spending this period developing good habits can lead to lifelong positive changes.

Remember, you can contact Nurse & Midwife Support if you need support with this or any other issue. Just email us or call 1800 667 877.

Further Reading

• Changing habits for the long haul, Eric Houston
• How we form habits, change existing ones, Society for Personality and Social Psychology
• How the brain makes, and breaks, a habit, Inga Kiderra, University of California-San Diego
• Towards parsimony in habit measurement: Testing the convergent and predictive validity of an automaticity subscale of the Self-Report Habit Index, International Journal of Behavioural and Physical Activity
• Benefits of habit‐based informational interventions: a randomised controlled trial of fruit and vegetable consumption, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health
• Healthy habits die hard: In times of stress, people lean on established routines -- even healthy ones, University of Southern California
• Breaking Habits With Implementation Intentions: A Test of Underlying Processes, Society for Personality and Social Psychology
• Good habits, Bad habits: A conversation with Wendy Wood

By Maddi Munro

Maddi Munro is an early career registered nurse at Gold Coast University Hospital and shares her thoughts about her career, career plans and what has supported her to thrive.

I am a millennial nurse with career aspirations to take 21st century nursing to new levels. By incorporating mentoring and technology as leverage in advancing knowledge, skills, and network marketing we can truly make a difference to the advancement of nursing and health care, building on the incredible work done by all the nurses and midwives who have come before me.

Taking every opportunity

I am passionate about “thinking outside the box” to contribute to advancing nursing and health care. In 2018 I was fortunate to be sponsored by Nurse & Midwife Support to attend the Australian College of Nursing National Forum on Diversity and Difference. This was such an inspirational experience as this theme resonates with me and my generation. There were amazing keynote speakers from all over Australia including members of parliament, nurse leaders, and emerging nurse leaders, all who were brainstorming ways in which healthcare can be advanced and diversified, and the action required to create change.

Being sponsored to attend this conference meant that I could not only absorb the knowledge gained from all the sessions, be inspired to create change and network with like minded professionals to improve health care. When these types of opportunities are presented to you I encourage all my early career nursing and midwifery colleagues to take it with both hands and run with it, you never know what types of opportunities will open up to you.

Setting Foundations

Fundamentally, what is important to me and my goals, morals, and ethics correlates to how I am as a nurse. It sets my foundations in how I contribute to shape the future of nursing. As cliché as it sounds, I do have a passion and natural tendency to care for people.

I have ideas and plans for how to change health care beyond the COVID-19 pandemic that involve me becoming a nurse influencer. My goal is to collaborate with people working in information technology to advance iEMR (electronic medical records) and other forms of technology to equip nurses and midwives to become more efficient and effective in their day to day practice. I would also like to continue mentoring the next generation of nurses inspiring with my passion to contribute to innovation that creates improvement in health care.

This drive inside of me began with being mentored by an industry nurse during my study at Griffith. It helped me prepare for job opportunities and career prospects and make a head start in the real world. So I would like to do the same and encourage others to find mentors through your organisational programs, or simply reach out through professional social media streams. I envision nursing will transform digitally and open pathways for job opportunities in entrepreneurial avenues and I would love to be a part of that.

Finding your passion

Within nursing and midwifery finding specific areas that you are passionate about can help you carve out the way forward and help shape your career. My passion for nursing and health care innovation began six years ago at the beginning of my career. I was excited, as I still am, about the endless possibilities and pathways nursing presented.

Navigating the winding path

While I am still towards the beginning of my career I have already encountered and learned a huge amount. I gained experience and skills in medicine, vascular, surgical and orthopaedics nursing. I experienced blood, sweat and tears as I learned my profession. The ups, the downs, the heart ache, pain, end of life, and the beginning of something amazing. It’s important to normalize the emotion of nursing and celebrate achievements and honour our passion and enthusiasm.

Most importantly we must normalise the necessity of support throughout our careers, if you don’t feel OK ask for help. Even if its just at the end of a tough shift, seeking support early may assist you to prevent the harsh reality of burnout experienced by too many in our profession. I am heartened to know that Nurse & Midwife Support is there for us 24/7 — you just call them on 1800 667 877.

Living life

How nurses and midwives manage, navigate, plan and make sense of our career decisions and life transitions is guided by our desire to live our best life — and that all starts with our health and lifestyle. How nurses and midwives manage, navigate, plan and make sense of our career decisions and life transitions is guided by our desire to live our best life — and that all starts with our health and lifestyle. Simple things like what you put in your mouth, who you hang out with, and when you go to bed all contributes to success in your career and how you navigate life transitions.

The things that keep driving you can be moments big and small, the look on a patient’s face when I donated some clothing because she didn’t have anything to wear. The special patients that have stuck with me in my heart and have struck a chord in me. And the beautiful sisters and brothers I have pleasure working alongside everyday.

Find your passion and the support you need, support others and keep working in this wonderful profession and you will give and gain so much throughout your career.

If you’d like to talk through a big career decision, give Nurse & Midwife Support a call on 1800 667 877! We’re here 24/7 to help you with anything you need.

By Nicole Nash-Arnold

My work with the Nursing & Midwifery Emporium has proven what I already knew: job dissatisfaction is a chronic problem among nurses and midwives.

If you’re one of the many nurses feeling unhappy and lost in your career, the answer might lie in a framework from Japanese philosophy.

No, really. Studies of the world’s healthiest communities have identified that having a vocational purpose is one of the key factors for health and longevity. A pet subject group for researchers is the population of the Japanese island of Okinawa (where the women are the longest-lived people on the planet), and they have a word for what gets you up in the morning: ikigai.

The word doesn’t have a direct translation, but it means something like ‘a reason for being’. To find your ikigai, ask yourself these four questions:

• What do you love?
• What are you good at?
• What does the world need from you?
• What can you get paid for?

Some people claim that your ikigai sits at the intersection of these four answers: your perfect vocation will be something you love, that you’re good at, that the world needs, and which you can be paid for.

If your job doesn’t deliver on all or any of those things, you might be feeling pretty depressed right now. But I think there are a couple of other factors to take into account when it comes to pursuing your ikigai:

1. Your ikigai doesn’t have to come from work.

The locus of your ikigai can change as you age: at different stages of life you might get fulfilment from studying, or parenting, or grandparenting, or travel. If your ikigai is all tied up in work, you’ll have an obvious problem when you retire. So don’t feel like you have to put all your satisfaction eggs in the one career basket.

It’s great if you can have a career that fulfils on all four aspects of ikigai. But some people are quite happy if they can just put the time in and get paid, and find their sense of purpose and joy outside of work. It doesn’t matter where your ikigai comes from, as long as you feel satisfied.

2. Some aspects of ikigai are more important to some people than others.

This is where ikigai meets the work that I do, with whole brain thinking. Your ikigai will look different to the next person’s, because your brain is probably different to the next person’s.

The Brain Dominance instrument that I use classifies four types of thinkers:

• Red—Relational & Emotional
• Green—Practical & Procedural
• Yellow—Experimental & Entrepreneurial
• Blue—Analytical and Logical.

Different types of thinkers will care more about some aspects of ikigai than others. You can probably guess what’s most important to each type of thinker:

• What do I love to do?
• What am I good at?
• What does the world need?
• What can I get paid for?

Your personal brand of job satisfaction might lie in doing something you love, even if it’s not very well-paid. Or you might feel like it’s pointless to get up and go to work in the morning unless you’re contributing something the world really needs. Or you might just want to keep your head down, tick all the boxes and do a good job.

Or you might not need a big sense of purpose at work—your idea of joy might be getting paid as much as you can, so that you can pursue your real passion on your own time.

So, what can you do about your career?

Nobody needs an unhappy nurse or midwife. And you don’t have to be one. I encourage you to take your life satisfaction seriously. Here are some questions to ask yourself around ikigai and how it operates in your career or organisation:

If you’re a nurse or midwife that works clinically:

• Can you identify which of the four ikigai questions is most important to you?
• Do you feel like your current career pathway sits in the ikigai zone? If not, how could you re-jig your role to include more of your favourite flavour of ikigai?
• If your job isn’t your ikigai, do you have other things in your life that fill you up?

If you’re a manager:

• Do you take your people’s life satisfaction seriously? How can you help them to be happier, more productive nurses or midwives?
• How can you identify your people’s dominant thinking types and channel them into roles and tasks that fill up their particular cup of satisfaction?

Knowing yourself provides the opportunity to identify the thinking that dominates in themselves and others, so that organisations can better match people with roles that suit their thinking preference.

Our industry doesn’t need any more unhappy nurses!

If you’d like to discuss your answers to the ikigai questions, give Nurse & Midwife Support a call on 1800 667 877. You can learn more about ikigai and career coaching for nurses and midwives at nursemanagerhq.com.

About Nicole Nash-Arnold

With over 15 years’ experience in senior & executive roles, I can read a Profit & Loss better than I can read an ECG. I'm a theatre nurse, I’ve been perioperative educator and manager, run an emergency department and been a nursing director. I have post-graduate qualifications in nursing, coaching and management.

Importantly, I continue to practice nursing, clinically. But I understand hospitals and healthcare. I know how nurses think and feel and what worries them. My mission here at Nurse Manager HQ is to provide nurses & midwives professional develop programs and career coaching that transitions accomplished clinicians into empowered leaders.

I deliver support that is practical, based in neuroscience & provides pragmatic techniques you can immediately implement: a perfect complement to academic programs. Hundreds of emerging & experienced nurse leaders have engaged with me for help & walked away feeling empowered, confident and re-invigorated about taking on the exciting challenge of nursing leadership to build brilliant nursing cultures & deliver amazing person-centred outcomes.

In this episode I speak to two inspiring nurses and a passionate midwife at different stages of their career. They share insights, reflections, tips, strategies and resources that have assisted them to make decisions about their life phases and career transitions.

Creating Space

As part of my preparation for this podcast I read The Third Space by Dr Adam Fraser, a scientist who studied psychology and physiology. Adam worked in academia for many years and now works as a consultant, career coach and public speaker.

Dr Fraser’s book provides useful information about getting the small stuff right — not 'sweating' it, but making it much more rewarding, much more often. Dr Fraser came up with the concept of the third space. That is the space between whatever we are doing now and whatever we are about to transition into.

"The third space is simply a technique that allows us to compartmentalise," Fraser says, a mindfulness and self-awareness method that helps us to decompress in a matter of minutes.

Reflection

Dr Fraser says that the first phase in The Third Space is Reflect:

“This is where we learn from what we have just done and are able to leave that previous space behind so we can transition cleanly. In other words, the Reflect phase involves checking negative baggage at the door.” (p65)

This reminded me that when considering decisions about life and career it is useful to create space to be still, rested and clear to enable reflection on where you have been and what you want to do next. This will help you to make decisions that are in your best interests.

About our podcast guests

Our 3 podcast guests share their thoughts, reflections and wisdom about what supports them to make decisions about their life phases and career transitions.

Maddi Munro

An early career nurse has big plans, lots of ambition and drive. Maddi shares her story about how developing a career plan, utilising nurse mentors and being supported to attend a career defining conference helped her shape her career and feel supported.

Helen Pentecost

A passionate midwife, who following an injury had to think differently about her career and how in the middle of her career returned to study to develop new skills and knowledge that supports her role at Nurse & Midwife Support.

Elle Brown

A respected registered nurse, who towards the end of her career utilised her 40 years’ experience and network of support to recognise that she had valuable skills, experience and passion for supporting other nurses and midwives. Thankfully nurses and midwives from all over Australia now benefit from this.

If you are considering a different phase in your life and/or career transition we hope this podcast provides useful information, resources and tips that will assist you to make these important decisions. Spending time in The Third Space may be just what you need to assist your decision-making process.

Your health matters!

Mark Aitken RN

Listen to the podcast here