Emma Holland

I have been agency nursing since September this year, doing 6-12 week contracts in various locations around Australia, on surgical and general medical wards. I'm currently at the Royal Hobart Hospital, Tasmania. This has been a great opportunity to see new places, meet new people and learn new skills.

Dunstan is a small rural hospital with a 24 acute bed inpatient ward, 3 of which are HDU beds. As a rural hospital, the work is very varied and I gained great all round experience here.

Here I worked on the ward of this private, elective surgical hospital. My role included managing care from admission to discharge and involving a number of surgical specialties including orthopaedic, general, urology, gynaecology, and ear, nose and throat. Patients are of all ages and abilities from paediatric to elderly.

This role involved building strong relationships with young people in our care. This included practicing life skills such as cooking, chores, art projects, getting out in nature, exercising and day trips or fun activities in down time.

All the young people in our care came from different backgrounds, some of them vulnerable. It was a privilege to be part of their journey and hopefully help guide them.

Managing up to 5 doctors clinics - this involved managing their schedules, greeting patients, managing scripts, dictaphone typing, record management and general admin duties.

This role involved selling travel experiences and building my client base, managing team workloads to reach production targets, handling escalated customer issues, delegating daily tasks, addressing employee questions, and resolved scheduling issues.