Practice Nursing

There are some 12,500 Practice Nurses who perform their duties all around Australia.  More than half of the GP clinics employ at least one Practice Nurse, some employ more.

 

The role of the Practice Nurse is varied and on any given day the Practice Nurse could be involved in supporting patients with lifestyle education, aged care, women and men's health, infection control, chronic disease management such as cardiovascular, asthma and chronic airways diseases, immunization, maternal and child health, health promotion, population health, diabetes, wound management and much more.

 

A Practice Nurse is very much a member of a team that works closely together to ensure that a patient is fully cared for.  On any one given day a Practice Nurse may have anything up to 50 interactions with patients, either face-to-face and/or over the phone.  As well as that they may be required to update files for many more.

 

At any time there is also the knowledge that a medical emergency may present itself at any moment.  Sue discussed one such event that she was involved in.  Luckily it had a happy ending when a 45 year old man had a cardiac arrest in the clinic she was working in.  Fortunately through the efforts of the team, they were able to get an ambulance organized, stabilize him and have him transported to the nearest hospital; then have all his necessary records sent there, so that by the time he arrived, the hospital staff were ready to wheel him directly into the operating theatre and were able to save his life. 

 

A Practice Nurse is required daily to care for patients, organize many aspects of their patient's care; quality control the services they provide; problem solve issues that arise; and educate patients in areas of prevention and health promotion.

 

Sue believes that Doctors diagnose and nurses nurture, care and can do to free up the GP's time for other important work that they do.

 

Thanks Sue for taking the time to give us an overview of the great work that you have been involved in for the past 15 years or so.  It was also a timely reminder that we should also be talking to our own doctors about getting vaccinations and keeping them up to date - especially those of us who had chicken pox as children to guard against getting shingles later in life.