JOURNEY OF AN ICU NURSE ON INTERNATIONAL NURSES DAY 2025
With
Kate Leigh, Clinical ICU Nurse
Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital, Nedlands, Western Australia
PEOPLE IN HEALTH CARE SEGMENT
Filmed in Nedlands, Western Australia | May 2025
Kate Leigh is a clinical nurse at the Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital Intensive Care Unit in Perth, Western Australia, with seven and a half years of experience in intensive care, having started her career in London as a new graduate nurse. Initially focused on haematology, she found herself drawn to ICU after meeting a confident and knowledgeable nurse during a discharge. Inspired by his expertise and assuredness, Kate decided to pursue a transfer to Critical Care after seeing an internal advertisement that highlighted educational opportunities and professional development programs.
Since her transition, Kate has found the ICU environment to be incredibly supportive and welcoming. Despite not knowing anyone in the field before her entry, she fostered strong relationships with colleagues and has remained in Critical Care ever since, enjoying her role each day. Currently, she is involved in various projects aimed at enhancing patient and family experiences in ICU, such as the Three Wishes project, which focuses on providing palliative care and comfort items for patients and their families.
Additionally, Kate emphasises the importance of preventing ICU admissions and readmissions through early intervention and patient monitoring. Her work with the Metcal team and clinical nurse specialists aims to identify and address issues with deteriorating patients on the wards before they require intensive care, demonstrating her commitment to improving patient outcomes within the critical care environment.
Source: Written by AUDIENCED from transcript
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Health-Tech Connections
Challenges in health care delivery have compounded, with clinical staff being exposed to the Omicron COVID variant. Reduced staffing has brought on its challenges to most already-strained state health care systems and the people working in them.
However, over the past 2 years of the pandemic, technology has played an increasing role on the front end for patients and consumers at home and clinicians in the medical setting. Much more is planned in technology that will deliver efficiency, reduce risk and make available new models of care. This has the potential to touch the working lives of all stakeholders and
recipients of care. -
Global GP Conference comes to Australia
Over 3000 delegates from around the World will gather at the 50th celebration of WONCA to reconnect and revive General Practice, sharing knowledge and learnings on access, equity, funding, and multidisciplinary care teams. This includes networking with Australian and overseas GPs and in particular learning about primary care practices in other countries.
Australian Health Journal met with Dr Nicole Higgins, President of RACGP in transit at Brisbane Airport recently and she spoke about the $6 Billion allocated in the Federal Budget in May as a significant achievement for General Practice investment. She also emphasised this announcement reinforced GPs should be at the centre of multidisciplinary care teams to ensure continuity of care and better health outcomes.
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Unleashing the potential of Paramedic skills and knowledge
According to a prominent paramedicine academic and researcher, paramedics have the potential to provide much-needed care in the community, changing the traditional healthcare model. Research points to paramedics having a wider healthcare workforce impact based on their ability to identify and fix problems 24/7.
Dr. Brendan Shannon is Head of Postgraduate Programs in the Department of Paramedicine at Monash University and a member of The Australasian College of Paramedicine. His interests including refining healthcare models, to ensure underserved communities receive requisite care. These alternative care pathways, like outreach programs, can work out of hospitals to provide care in underserved communities with social and complex chronic conditions.
