Thousands of nurses migrate every year looking for career development, a new challenge and the novelty of travel, variety and adventure. Australia has always been an attractive destination for both migrant nurses looking for a change in lifestyle, as well as for travellers just seeking nursing work to fund their journey. The tourist season in Australia runs from December to March, when the country is at its warmest. This is also a popular time for nurses wanting to go to Australia to stay and work on a working holiday visa. Understandably, nurses tend to head for the sun loving beach sprinkled east coast on the ‘Sydney to Cairns route’, working and travelling along the way, but overseas nurses can be found all over Australia any time of the year. They often choose longer stay visas, some even deciding to permanently migrate to Australia.
The range of nursing roles in Australia is diverse and this is due to the size of the country, its geography and the environment and the spread of the population. A nurse may need to fly out to run a clinic in a remote area to provide much needed nursing care in the ‘outback’, or one might choose to become a clinic nurse on a remote island in the Whitsundays. There are a variety of roles aside from the more usual hospital-based positions, including jobs in: community health, acute care, homeless teams, remote area nursing, flight nursing, outback placements, liaison services and nurse-run clinics, providing roles for everyone from Nurse Practitioners to general practice nurses.
As newcomers to the Australian health service, nurses face a number of challenges as they learn about new practices and frameworks, and behaviours that may be significantly different from the health care background they are from. Those that aren’t put off by the initial challenges do adapt to the environment and are successful in no time at all.
Nursing in Australia has many similarities to other westernised countries. Many who have made the leap also say that the experiences gained working in another country only served to broaden the scope of their nursing practice, even accelerating their career path and future job prospects.
Nursing in Australia - A Guide to Working and Living as a Nurse Down Under is an exciting new eBook which aims to equip internationally qualified nurses with information prior to arriving in Australia and starting work in its health service. The eBook includes information on preparation nurses need to undertake (and what they need to know) up front, how much it is likely to cost, where they might think about living and how to obtain the right visa, as well as lots of technical information, from hospital contact details and advice on getting a job, to drug calculation checklists and National Inpatient Medication Charts.
This series of articles will include information from the eBook covering: planning your trip, visas; health examinations; the English language test; what to expect from nursing in the Australian health service; familiarising yourself with the health service; administering medication in Australia; job grades; nursing salaries; and successfully performing drug calculations in Australia.
You can also download the first 20 pages of the eBook, which includes the contents pages listing all the subjects covered in this 361 page, 3 part eBook
http://www.nursingaustralia.info.
About the Author: Emma Bates, RN, BSC has held a variety of senior nursing positions both in the UK and in Australia. Emma is a nurse educator, writer, and has co-produced an orientation CD for foreign nurses migrating to Australia.
Click here to read more on Emma Bates.