What's your job about?
I am employed as a Graduate Registered Nurse in the operating theatres at Westmead Private Hospital.
My role as an Anaesthetic Nurse includes setting up and preparing equipment required for our patients’ anaesthesia. We work directly with anaesthetic doctors and closely with the rest of the theatre team, having a strong focus on maintaining patient safety.
Examples of patient safety measures include easing stress and anxiety, comfort before during and after anaesthetics, pressure area care, ensuring the patient is hemodynamically stable etc.
Our priority is maintaining our patient’s airways; therefore we are expected to recognise different airway management strategies and assist the doctor with airway difficulties and concerns.
It is also my job to identify, pre-empt and communicate to the team any problems or concerns that may impact the surgery. In doing so, I am my patients' advocate, actively communicating to ensure efficiency, accuracy and patient safety within our theatre team.
What's your background?
I have grown up and lived in Sydney my entire life!
Reflecting on my school years, the most life-changing and cherished years would have had to be doing my HSC and attending Uni.
Those years taught me a lot about myself, my interests and ambitions and most importantly, navigating the unknown but being able to enjoy it with good company.
One of the biggest hurdles I had to overcome was getting through my HSC. I knew I was drawn to healthcare, specifically trauma and critical care. I chose nursing over paramedicine as nursing is a very diverse profession and allowed me to grasp different areas of specialities. I landed a graduate position in theatre and I’m already 5 months into it! Theatre was not an environment I ever expected myself to be in as I had a passion for trauma care. However, my role in anaesthetics provides me with a very valuable foundation in trauma and critical care management.
Could someone with a different background do your job?
I believe any nurse can do the same job as I do, with appropriate clinical training and support. However, a person without a medical background would not be able to do this job as it requires a reasonable understanding of human anatomy and acute medical care. It is definitely not a textbook job as every patient is different, so it is important to have good interpreting, analysing and problem-solving skills.
What’s the best thing about your job?
The biggest highlight for me would be that every and any patient can be unpredictable. From airway difficulties to surgical complications, things really jump from 0 to 100. It challenges me to think, respond and display my leadership skills.
From a non-medical perspective, I look forward to working because it is such a warming and fun environment. Everyone is supportive and can talk together about almost anything.
What are the limitations or challenging aspects of your job?
One of the limitations of being a theatre nurse is that you don’t get much of an opportunity to practice your bedside nursing skills as most of our patients have surgery done and are asleep.
As a theatre nurse, you work under the direction of doctors, meaning that there is less autonomy in deciding care plans for our patients. The theatre environment is very different to ward-based nursing and if I was to transition back into ward-based nursing, it would take some time to re-develop my clinical nursing skills.
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