The Graduate 🏆👩🏼‍🎓: Part 4 of 4 Nursing Australia Summer Series 🏖️

[MUSIC] This is Nursing Australia, proudly brought to you by APNAH, the Australian Primary Healthcare Nurse Association. [MUSIC] Hello again and welcome to the final installment in the Nursing Australia Summer Series in this fourth episode. We meet Taylor Jane Duna. Now Taylor was the 2024 APNAH graduate nurse of the year. Taylor is here to tell us about what she's achieved so far, juggling the work, student, parent, life, balance, all of the balances, her aspirations to becoming a rural nurse practitioner in caffeine as a life source. So please settle in with a cup of tea, a cup of coffee, and prepare to be motivated. Here is the graduate nurse of the year. Taylor. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] My name is Taylor Jane Duna and I'm a registered nurse on the Central Coast New South Wales. I was lucky enough to receive the APNAH graduate nurse of the year awards for 2024, which is really exciting and nerve-wracking all at once to be honored with something so amazing. I actually went into my new graduate year wanting to win this award. I remember having my first interview at a general practice and saying, these are my goals, these are my ambitions, and APNAH graduate nurse of the year was at the very top of my list. To me, primary health care nurses are so under-recognized in what we do. I think that to have recognition for the hard work that we put in and for the knowledge that we have amongst a broad amount of topics is just so underutilized. So to be able to win this award means so much to me personally because I am so passionate about this industry that it's just nice to be recognized. [MUSIC] I started my nursing journey in 2022 with the University of Tasmania. I was able to do it through their Roselle campus, which is in Sydney. So I went through and did their FastTrack program, which is a two-year degree, which was super full-on and exciting all at once. I decided to go into nursing because I love helping people. And as cliche as it sounds, it's so rewarding to be able to look at a patient and say, I've made a difference in their life. I first became interested in primary health care nursing when I did a corrections rotation during placements. I was never exposed to that kind of nursing before where in uni, it was all focused on acute care settings and living in a six-hour shift and not seeing anything beyond that. So rather than getting hand over in the hospital and having that person for eight hours, I was able to look at that person and think, okay, this patient is here for the next X amount of months or X amount of years. What can I do to help increase their quality of life and help them to achieve better health outcomes rather than thinking to myself, okay, I have a patient here that needs this and that and then after that, that's the next person's problem. So it's really interesting to see that kind of difference in nursing care. At the moment, I'm working between two practices, one being in YA New South Wales and the other one being in single-turn New South Wales. I'm currently in the process of completing my APNAR transition to practice program. It's been really helpful to know that I've got a mentor in the program that I'm able to ask questions to and to go back to the feedback and support. I'm also finding that the online modules have been really helpful in helping me to broaden my knowledge-based progeneral practice, being new to the industry can be quite scary. So to have that support for the 10 months is just immensely helpful. My mentor is so fantastic at explaining concepts to me in an easy to understand way and she's been encouraging me to slow down a little bit and to not stress as much. I think a lot of pressure is put on us to perform when we come into general practice roles because unfortunately it's not seen as a knowledgeable specialty as such. When you compare it to things like ICU or emergency departments, you do often hear that negative talk that, "Oh, primary health care, it's a slower pace of work and you don't know as much or you don't utilize your skills as much," which I think is completely wrong. It's such a walked perception of what we do and I realise going into this role how much I had to know and I was so hungry to learn and eager to get more experience and more knowledge onto my belt that I took on a lot during my transition year and my nurse was fantastic at telling me, "Let's take a breather, let's step back a little bit and not stress as much because when we stress, that's when mistakes happen and it's better to take a slower approach to learning." I've learnt so many different things that are just so interesting that it's hard to pin down one. I really enjoy wounds. I find that they continue to fascinate me with how they evolve and how they change two wounds that present the same way can behave totally differently depending on what you do for them. So it's interesting to watch a wound go from point A to point B. I am a very gold-driven person. I have the next five years of my life mapped out to a T so I've got my ambition set on completing my graduate diploma in nursing which is specialising in primary health care and eventually I'm hoping to get a master of nursing which will lead to nurse practitioner role in the future. My ambitions obviously require me to have a lot of experience and a lot of knowledge onto my belt so where I eventually want to lead to in the future is a rural nurse practitioner specialising in primary health care and I would love to be able to deliver that health care to people that need it most to be able to make the most difference and the most impact with my knowledge. For me as cliche as it sounds, nursing is a calling so nursing was initially the first call that I answered and I haven't looked back since and like I said during my placement in the corrections facility that's when I heard my second calling was to draw me to primary health care and again I haven't looked back since so the more that I learn and the more that I experience in this field it's just so exciting and interesting and it's so under-recognised so anything that I can do to help promote it or advocate for primary health care is what I would do. When I'm not nursing I am usually found catching up on everything else around the house. I have a young daughter so it is a very challenging and balancing act being a mountain studying and working so most of the time I'm just trying to squeeze in as much quality time with family as I can. I'd be absolutely lost without the facilities that have supported me like vacation care after school care before school care. My daughter has been an absolute trooper to sustain the lifestyle that we do. My main goal with working as hard as I do is to be a role model for her and to help her see that even through adversity and challenges in life we can overcome things and we can succeed. The one way that I sustain my lifestyle is caffeine. I am truly in addict and if I have no caffeine then I'm a very different person let me tell you that. Literally my life sauce and I don't care what form it comes in it can come in chocolate it can come coffee coming in energy drink whatever it is I will take it. By more than you can chew and chew like mad it is something that my dad has said to me once and I will never forget it and it's very much the way that I live my life. I try to take on as much as I can and I try to achieve as much as I can and in all honesty if I can do it anyone can do it. I can at times be one of the most disorganized and dysfunctional people that you'll ever meet but we manage to get it done and I hope that I can inspire others to do the same. Thanks, Daila, and thank you for tuning into the 2020-24/25 Nostalgia Australia Summer Series. This was a four parts and that was in store. Number four, we really hoped this is you in the 2020 thrive. If you missed any episodes of the Summer Series, make sure you go back now and have a listen. And very soon on Monday, February 3, Nostalgia Australia will be back for its fifth season, resuming normal programming. We'll be breaking the ice by looking at a few issues affecting our older cohort, the over 65s. Any depression used in over 65s and dementia training for health professionals, it is a must listen episode. Enjoy your week. We'll catch you soon and happy, happy new year. Thank you for listening to Nostalgia Australia this episode. And this series was produced by Leith Alexander. Thanks for listening to Nursing Australia.