“As the peak professional body for Australian nurses, membership of the Australian College of Nursing provides me with access to CPD opportunities, networking, mentorship and access to high quality resources. The opportunities to interact with nurses both within my region and throughout Australia provide valuable networking opportunities and potential for collaborative partnerships.”
“The ACN has been providing education to McGrath Breast Care Nurses since 2013.
The Graduate Certificate in Breast Care Nursing that we encourage our nurses to complete provides specialist knowledge that has a strong clinical foundation that builds on and leverages existing knowledge and skills and ultimately contributes to evidence based best-practice.
The course is also aligned with breast care nursing competency frameworks and nationally recognised educational frameworks, which is very reassuring. Course content spans the breadth of the breast cancer experience with a focus on multidisciplinary well-coordinated care. The embedding of leadership capabilities throughout each module allows our nurses to expand their skill base and develop competencies in for example, communication and team work- vital aspects of their roles. Feedback from our nurses has always been extremely positive in relation to course content, materials and support.”
– Jane Mahony, Mission Programmes Director, McGrath Foundation
“Enrolled Nurse Director on the Australian College of Nursing Board
Having an Advanced Diploma has provided me with both personal and professional skills. For example, some of those skills recognised by my peers are: quality of care; knowledge and leadership. At the same time I am utilising my skills and leadership as the Enrolled Nurse Director on the Australian College of Nursing (ACN) Board.
Having an Advanced Diploma allows you as an Enrolled Nurse to engineer your future within the nursing fraternity and continue to develop your nursing skills. It offers a more holistic process of care; qualities management and fulfilling your professional ambitions. All of this while still being the person who spends the majority of the shift working to meet the needs of patient centred care.”
“I am proud to be a part of a large, well-respected organisation that advocates and cares for nursing. The ACN is progressive with all that is on offer to their members and provides a number of platforms for networking opportunities. Attendance at the Annual Nursing Forum is always on my bucket list.”
“Further to our conversation at the CNSA I just wanted to email you to let you know how beneficial I have found the ‘post graduate certificate in Breast Cancer Nursing’ course.
I came into this McGrath Breast care nurse role with no specific breast cancer experience (albeit 22 years of nursing behind me which included 9 years of palliative care!).
I found that the course was so applicable to everything I was doing on a daily basis and it added to my confidence, being able to back up my conversations with patient with actual evidence I have come across in my studies and searches for literature to do my assignments.
I am not an academic and I have to admit a certain amount of stress in the lead up to an assignment, but looking back, even under stress the learning through the assignments was invaluable and now I look back at my assignments with pride and think ‘did I actually write that?’!
I have studied another post grad cert with another academic facility in Australia and I can honestly put my hand on my heart and say I came out the other side of that course none the wiser and it definitely did not make me a better nurse. This to me is sad to think that courses are mainly academic focused rather than applicable to the clinical setting. The main difference I found was that with the ACN the students were able to demonstrate what we had already learned in our previous nursing practice and give our opinion-to a point.
In the other academic facility I was told on a few occasions that ‘in academic writing no one wants your opinion so please don’t write it.’ !!!!!!!!!
I just wanted to thank you for all the support and just by being there and being available it meant a lot.”
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“The ACN has been providing education to McGrath Breast Care Nurses since 2013.
The Graduate Certificate in Breast Care Nursing that we encourage our nurses to complete provides specialist knowledge that has a strong clinical foundation that builds on and leverages existing knowledge and skills and ultimately contributes to evidence based best-practice.
The course is also aligned with breast care nursing competency frameworks and nationally recognised educational frameworks, which is very reassuring. Course content spans the breadth of the breast cancer experience with a focus on multidisciplinary well-coordinated care. The embedding of leadership capabilities throughout each module allows our nurses to expand their skill base and develop competencies in for example, communication and team work- vital aspects of their roles. Feedback from our nurses has always been extremely positive in relation to course content, materials and support.”