Nursing in Aussie

me in my lovely uniform at work

This post if for my friends who are interested in Australian nursing some day! Highly recommended!


A day in the life:
Get to work, meet in the break room for a short "handover" (report) from the Charge Nurse from the shift before. The nurses pick their patients - so you speak up if you want to take care of a certain patient that day (i loved that!)
Then, you get "handover" from the nurse who took care of your pt the shift prior at the bedside
Every morning there was "rounds" with the doctors, manager, pharmacist, nutritionist, social worker in the break room (when they get around to talking about your pt, you go in the break room and listen and give them any input)
Break #1 - 30 min
Break #2 - 30 min lunch
Break #3 - 20 min

On nightshift, we would get a 30 min lunch then a one hour "sleep". Can't complain!


Unique to Australia:
- All meds are double checked - even NS
- Dr's draw blood (unless it's from a line -a nurse can do that)
- Dr's start IV's
- Nurses can change vent setting if they feel necessary and tell the Dr later
- Nurses manage the ventilator (set up, clean up, trouble-shooting, charting, running gases, etc)
- Nurses clean the bedside and equipment once a pt is discharged, and set-up for a new patient.
- All meds are "free-for-all" in a cabinet, and VERY FEW are locked up and checked regularly
- They have Tylenol IV (called Panadol or Paracetamol in Australia)
- There is no such thing as Benadryl
- There are no nursing aids, but there were always "resource nurses" with no patients to help you out. So, there was a charge nurse and usually 2-3 resource nurses with no patients!! Unheard of!
- All vented kids were 1:1 - there had to be a nurse at the bedside at all times (hence the need for resource nurses)
- If you discharge a kid home, there is NO paperwork to give them - is so super easy.
- Nurses don't wear scrubs. They wear navy blue pants, the button down shirt (in the pic above), and black shoes. Not my favorite.
- The doctors are called Registrars (aka residents) and there are Consultants (aka attending)

We lived acroos the street from the hospital, so it was a short walk to work which was awesome!!!

Different lingo for food:
Ice block -popsicle
Cordial - juice
Jelly - Jello (I got so confused)