Joanne's Story - how travel broadened nursing experience and applying resilience in tough times

Real Nurse Stories

In this episode, I interview Joanne who is a registered nurse working in an emergency department in a regional hospital in Australia. Nurses working in an emergency department never know what is going to come through the door and they deal with trauma on a daily basis. Working in an environment where there is daily exposure to trauma can deplete resilience and it is so important to have personal strategies to deal with this. Joanne describes emergency nursing as "caring from the first cry to the last breath". She describes her job as an emergency nurse as her Ikigai, her reason for being. Joanne has travelled extensively in her career and attributes her knowledge skills and experience in having taken opportunities to learn new nursing skills in regional nursing jobs across Australia. Joanne's talks about how she overcame personal struggles as a single parent, some serious health issues in her life and how her determination, strength, love for her daughter and her resilience got her through these very difficult times. We talk about the struggles that nurses who are single parents have in terms of juggling shift work and child care, homelessness, Ikigai and much more. Joanne beautifully describes what the essence of nursing is all about with examples from her practice as an emergency nurse. If you would like to know more about the coaching work that I do with nurses or would like to tell your story please get in touch [e-mail]