Meet Angie, our Nurse Unit Manager from Cardiology. Angie answered a few questions for us on what makes working in cardiology so unique and what a typical day looks like for her.
What makes your ward and the patients you care for unique from other wards?
The Cardiology department is different from a ward as we are a large team that works across many different areas in RCH. Within our department we have many talented cardiologists, cardiology fellows, specialised cardiology Advanced Practice Nurses and nurses, cardiac technologists and administration staff. Our team members work across cardiology subspecialties such as the paediatric heart transplant and Ventricular Assist Device teams, the electrophysiology team and pulmonary hypertension teams and care for these specialised patients as inpatients and outpatients throughout their journey. In addition to the cardiology APN’s in our various teams we have very experienced cardiology nurses who run our cardiology and cardiac surgery pre-admission clinics seeing patients in an outpatient setting.
Tell us about your RCH journey. When you joined, the roles you’ve held here.
I joined RCH in 2002, where I completed my Graduate Nurse Year on 3EAST, which is now known as the Kelpie Ward.
Between 2003 and now I have worked in various places and roles across RCH, including time as a Associate Nurse Unit Manager, care manager and Clinical Nurse Specialist on the cardiac and renal ward, working in Paediatric Intensive Care Unit, covering the RCH specialist clinics NUM role and now as cardiology NUM.
Talk us through what a typical day looks like.
My days are rarely typical. They usually start with attending the morning hospital briefing or cardiology department meetings, and then I will sometimes attend the cardiology ward round in PICU and Koala to see how our patients are doing.
Throughout the day I monitor and respond to staff and patient needs in the cardiac surgical pre-admission and cardiology clinics in the specialist clinics area as well as attending various meetings across the day, organising staffing for the speciality services, clinic and pre-admission and addressing anything else that needs my attention.
What is the most rewarding thing about your current role?
The best things about the role I am in is working with the highly skilled members of our team. I enjoy contributing to the team and working with many multidisciplinary teams across many areas of RCH to ensure what is best for the patient’s care is achieved.
What is your favourite RCH memory or achievement?
I have many memories, but I think I really enjoy and feel a great sense of achievement when I see patients who have been very unwell as inpatients of RCH go on to recover and come to outpatients where we can see that they and their family have been able to return to their lives after illness.
In five words, tell us what you love you about your work?
Fantastic working within cardiology team.
If you could only take three things with you to a desert island, what would they be?
A book, a cup of tea and my family.
What attracted you to working at the RCH?
During my childhood I spent some time in the old RCH, where I grew to love the nurses. I always wanted to be a nurse from that point on.
My great admiration for the excellent care given at RCH drew me to work here once I was qualified as a nurse.
Can you tell us something about yourself that your staff might be surprised to learn?
I have a very large postage stamp collection as I have been collecting stamps on and off for almost 30 years.