faculty focus ogy • in te nsiv e care • neonatal • community nursing • manager
• a boriginal • ag e d care • practitioner • educ ability to move nurses within their organisation. But I don’ t see any of these conversations happening about medical specialists!”
The Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia says there are just under 337,000 registered nurses and midwifes in Australia as of September 2012.
There about 238,000 registered nurses, 59,000 enrolled nurses and 33,000 registered nurse / midwives. These are the three largest categories in the profession.
The biggest worry for Australia is the age of nurses. There are 51,055 nurses and midwives in the 51- to 55-year-old category. In the 41- to 60-year-old bracket there are a total of 178,567 nurses and midwives.
Surveys conducted by Monash University, Health Workforce Australia and the Australian Nursing Federation indicate that more and more nurses are looking to leave the profession for a multitude of reasons, including poor pay and lack of career opportunities. litat ator • rehabi ion • midwifery • paediatric
Career progression
By creating more and more specialist nurse roles it increases the opportunities for nurses to gain broader skills, higher pay as well as more job satisfaction.
“ There are often better career progression opportunities for specialist nurses,” says Dr Colleen Smith, associate head of the University of South Australia’ s school of nursing and midwifery.
“ For instance, nurses with specialist qualifications can extend their scope of specialist practice by undertaking the Master of Nursing( Nurse Practitioner) program. By offering specialist nursing positions, nurses can undertake that option and study the necessary qualifications to progress in that field.”
Smith believes there are far more advantages than disadvantages to nurses being able to specialise and it was inevitable that this genre would open up due to medical research.“ Nurses specialising in particular areas of medicine is a response to an increase in technology and advances in medical and health care knowledge,” she says.
“ Patient care is much more complex resulting in the need for more specialist nurses to drive the safety and quality agenda and improve patient outcomes.” �
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