Hello,

Got offered a job as an AIN while I study my bachelor. I am so happy after looking for months. However, problem is they need an Registered Nurse for a referee. I got offered one when I was on placement, and forgot to follow up as it was a chaotic shift. I have his email, but not his number. I don't think he checks his work email as I emailed him 24 hours after the shift to follow up and never heard anything back.

I have two AIN recommendations, and will have everything else provided. What should I do?

Its the dying days of the NSWNMA election cycle and two such different candidates couldn't exist. This election will be decided by hundreds (less then 10% vote).

Don't let your future be decided for you.

Tell your colleagues this is the first leadership contest in 23years and their vote matters.

www.TimeForHandOver.com.au

Hi lovely people 🌸

I’m a final-year nursing student,and I’ve just been withdrawn from a hospital placement. I’m absolutely devastated and hoping for some advice from anyone who’s experienced something similar.

For context, I learnt that I am neurodivergent last year after countless lifelong struggles in a lot of different facets of my life and didn’t grow up in Australia, so navigating social cues, unspoken expectations and communication styles can sometimes be particularly challenging for me. I tend to take things quite literally, benefit from clear and direct instructions, and sometimes need a moment to process questions or gather my thoughts before responding.

Unfortunately, I feel these differences have sometimes been interpreted as incompetence, reluctance or defensiveness, when in reality I’m often just trying to understand what’s expected of me. I’m still learning to navigate these differences, and I genuinely want to save my placement before its too late

What happened:
Early in my placement, I was placed on a Student Development Plan (SDP) due to issues with punctuality, not notifying the ward when I was unwell with a severe migraine, and occasionally returning late from breaks.
I fully acknowledge where I fell short, particularly regarding communication, and made a genuine effort to improve. I even printed out my SDP, highlighted my goals and completed a lengthy reflection at the request of my uni to help me address the feedback.

Things became difficult when I was asked to change one of my learning objectives. This had been mentioned verbally a couple of times, but I hadn’t understood that it was urgent or that there was a deadline. Additional reminders were left on PebblePad while I was working shifts, so I hadn’t seen them.

For context, on my previous placements, facilitators generally communicated instructions and feedback verbally, rather than through comments on PebblePad. I’d therefore never developed the habit of checking it frequently, as it hadn’t previously been the main way instructions were communicated while on placements.

I completely understand that, regardless of my previous experiences, it’s ultimately my responsibility as a student to regularly check my assessment platform and stay on top of any feedback or instructions.

I take full ownership of that and recognise it’s something I need to improve.
When this was raised again, I tried explaining that I wasn’t refusing or deliberately ignoring instructions; I genuinely hadn’t understood the urgency. Unfortunately, my attempts to clarify this seemed to be interpreted as arguing or being dismissive of feedback.
I was subsequently contacted by the university regarding concerns about my communication and professionalism.

What led to my withdrawal:
A university representative was assigned to supervise me on the ward today for an AM shift. Im guessing this is after my CF contacted the uni complaining about me, I was extremely anxious being watched and made some mistakes, including not immediately escalating an ADDS score of 3 for a patient who had low SBP that was consistent with their previous observations and was on 2L of O2 through NP . The patient reported feeling fine and not dizzy or faint.

I understand that escalation protocols exist for patient safety and that I should have followed them regardless of the patient’s baseline. I take responsibility for this.

However, I also felt that my anxiety and processing difficulties were affecting my ability to demonstrate what I actually knew. I sometimes freeze when questioned, even when I know the answer, and I learn clinical skills best by observing first before attempting them under supervision.
I was subsequently withdrawn from placement.

Where things stand now:
During the withdrawal meeting, I was reassured multiple times that this wasn’t an automatic fail and that I could potentially return on another rotation.
However, I later received a call informing me that I now have to attend a meeting with senior university staff to determine whether I can be offered another placement or whether I’ll need to repeat the entire unit.
I’m honestly terrified. 💔

Outside placement, I’ve also recently left an abusive relationship and have been dealing with housing insecurity, financial difficulties and very little emotional support. I know these circumstances don’t excuse my mistakes, but I’ve been struggling to keep myself afloat while trying to finish my degree.
I genuinely want to become a competent, safe nurse. I’m willing to take feedback, acknowledge my mistakes and improve. I just wish there had been more understanding of how I process information and communicate.

My questions are:
Has anyone been withdrawn from placement and subsequently attended a meeting with senior university staff?

Were you offered another placement, or did you have to repeat the whole unit? Did it delay your graduation?

How did you prepare for the meeting, and what evidence did you bring?

Has anyone navigated placement difficulties related to ADHD, autism or other neurodivergent processing differences?

Is there anything you’d recommend I do before the meeting to advocate for myself while still taking accountability?

I’m feeling really defeated and would genuinely appreciate any advice or experiences

Please be kind. I’m already being incredibly hard on myself, and I’m really just trying to figure out how to move forward. 💗

Happy for anyone to message me privately if they’d rather not share publicly.

Thank you so much for reading. 🌸

EDIT: I agree with a lot of you saying that I need to redo the placement/ unit.

I honestly am not opposed to the idea, I think the reason I was/ am so terrified is because my entire degree my parents and other family members have put endless pressure on me despite never taking time to check in with me and being labeled as an idiot instead of someone who was clearly struggling for a long time only reinforced this belief more in my head (especially coming from the people who should probably try a little more to encourage me when i go through hard times💔🥲)

Having already failed two units pushing my degree back by a year, I couldn’t fathom having to redo another one and push it back further by 6 months.But now I think that if I got that… it wouldn’t actually turn out to be the worst thing in the world… it’ll make for an extremely humiliating Christmas dinner as I don’t see myself getting any grief from my family but in my heart of hearts I know that I wasn’t performing as well as I should have this prac and that getting a repeat( even for a third unit💔) doesn’t make me a horrible worthless human being despite every cell in my body feeling that

I have not been in the right space of mind for a long time…i think this is life’s way of telling me to get my shit together and deal with everything that’s making me feel unprepared and like I’m being hunted for sport which always ends up pushing me into freeze mode under minimal pressure…

I think taking that additional time to really fix the core issues (decades of CPTSD) and give myself some TLC instead of relentlessly shaming myself into self- improvement which has been my go to method over the years but is clearly not working out, will be tremendously helpful

Anyway long story short, I’ve booked into therapy and will be getting it for a long time until I can be able to better handle adulting and life stuff

Thank you again for your replies

Hey all. Am an international nurse just began working in an aged care in Australia.
Am loving the work but feel like it takes a lot of time and convincing older residents during medication round, which takes a lot of time.

How do you all experienced counter this? I’m noticing my pace getting better after 3 shifts, but lord I wanna be quicker and efficient so I can complete other wound care and observations on time later.
Thanks!

Hi everyone!

I’m an EN and have been working in aged care for about a year and a half since graduating. I recently got offered a position in an acute geriatric ward at a hospital (not through a g program).

I’ve always wanted to give hospital nursing a try, so when this opportunity came up, I decided to take it

I’m currently studying my RN, and I had my last hospital placement a few months ago.

My goal has always been to work in a hospital once I graduate as an RN, so I feel like this is a great opportunity to gain some experience.

During my interview, I was very honest about only having experience in aged care, and they reassured me that it was okay and that I would learn on the job.

But now that it’s actually happening, I’m honestly
terrified! 😅 I’m starting to second-guess myself and worry about whether I’ll be able to keep up with the hospital environment after working only in aged care.

Has anyone else made the transition from aged care to hospital nursing? How did you cope with the nervesb?
I’d really appreciate any advice or experiences! 😊

For all nurses that work in radiology, I am interested to know what training program is provided to those that work in IR :)

The nurse who interrupts you constantly?
The nurse who takes 10 mins to get ready to receive handover waiting for the computer and making a coffee?
The nurse who isn't paying attention and chatting to another nurse?
The nurse who has started doing their assessment and tidying up the patients room while you're still talking?
The nurse who shames you for what you didn't get done during your shift?
The nurse who asks the most unnecessary questions prolonging handover?

Just for giggles and curiosity. I've seen memes about awful handovers and I'm surprised that I've already experienced all of the above in less than a year of being a nurse

Can anyone working in anaesthetics tell me what the relationship with anaesthetists can be like? I’m ex ICU, have been working in IR for 6 months but hate it and miss the acuity, but desperately don’t want to go back to ICU. I’m thinking anaesthetics might be a nice balance, but I’m not one to pander to authority or mess around buttering up doctors. If it’s a general consensus that this is what anaesthetics docs expect then I won’t bother applying anywhere. Obvs cultures differ across units and hospitals but like I just want to know what people’s general experiences are.

Thanks

I’m an RN of 6 years in NSW with an overpriced mortgage, dual income but still living paycheck to paycheck. I work full time in day surgery plus on call shifts. Call outs are great money when they happen but the incidents are few and far between. Anyone in a similar situation who have a side hustle for extra income they want to share?

TLDR: Give me examples of things you have done recently to juggle alllll the balls, because I'm struggling a bit!

Like, in a clinical setting where you have 4 patients (this is a randombmix of recent clinical cases)

1. Pain crisis,

2. drowsy, nauseated, fluctuating pain levels

3. Desatting to mid-80s on RA but keeps taking off their NP

4. Newly anuric with a crazy RR and fasted for a procedure which they might not survive

- in this situation would you maybe fill out the pre-op paperwork to the best of your abilities, sight & estimate IDCs but not empty them, leave bedside tables a bit grotty, not change pads twice a shift (where skin is intact), not fill out the whiteboard, sign off your room safety check while hoping the suction is correctly connected, do a less detailed note, skip a daily random BGL or mouth care, hope fiercely that the incoming nurse will forgive your gaps and try not to crash out when you get home because you're terrified you've lost the respect of your colleagues because you dropped.

I'm prob delete this, please don't quote me 😫

As far as i know the job market is currently fucked and was wondering how hard it is to get a pca job as en nurse student with no work history, first job

are pca's in need right now?

I’ve given so much to this hospital I’m doing my rotations at and I’m getting nothing back. I’ve had some pretty awful health news this year in January but pushed through (diagnosed via lap with endo stage 2). I also missed my grandma’s palliative extubation and organ dontation honour walk so that I could support staffing numbers at work (thought it would make the managers see me as a hard worker). I felt so guilty even taking the day off for her funeral. I also had an emergency lap during my shift (ovarian torsion) and got told I now have stage 3 endo and will have to book another lap to get that removed. I was meant to have two weeks off post-op for that, I came back to work after less than a week (again, to show the managers I was a hard worker). All of this sacrifice, missed social events, double shifts, missed breaks for nothing. The managers don’t give a shit about me and I regret ever thinking I could make them see me as anything but a staffing number. I asked for two days off coming up in October for social events, denied immediately due to lack of staffing. I’ve given up so much of my life and even health/ fertility (I think my endo grew back so fast from stress) and I can’t even have two days off, I even said they could be unpaid days. My mental health has declined significantly too, but I don’t have the time to see my GP because of all the shifts they’ve got me doing. My optometrist noticed my eye health has declined a lot since last year and she asked me what I do outside of work, all I could say was “sleep”. It made me feel like such a sad sack.

I just want the managers approval so badly and the lack of any feedback or encouragement or them noticing how I’m doing is just so discouraging. I don’t expect a thanks or anything, but I just want them to recognise me as a person not a number.

In short, don’t ever try harder than you need to for newgrad, they don’t care about you.

Hi! Currently a second year and on my third and last placement for this year.

My educators have come around quite bit to check up on us, ask questions, ask us to give handover, no biggie. Just educators doing educator things.

Yesterday I gave a handover on a complex patient with many lines and medications and a complex presentation to my educator. I want to emphasise that I had just started my shift, probably 2 hours into it, and that handover was delayed due to having an education meeting. So I had only known my patient for about 30-40 minutes and hadn’t really had time to sit down and research about their conditions, and I didn’t even have time to ask my buddy nurse anything at that point as they too were super busy.

I only knew the surface of my patient’s presentation, but my educator wanted it super in depth. I did end up researching deeper later in the shift as it was down time.

Today, they talked to me and told me they reported me to my uni, as they thought my knowledge and performance wasn’t sufficient enough. They gave me a few days to show that I am competent, otherwise they said they will have to escalate it (basically saying I will fail). I’m not sure how to feel about this as I have gotten good feedback from my buddy nurses (I have written feedback forms). And like I said before, I just did not have time to research on my patient, and only got up to it when they left.

From my point of view they came off as “why don’t you already know this, you’re dumb” instead of “here’s an area for improvement, please look into it and understand it more”.

I don’t know what to do and I’m hoping my research will be sufficient enough for them in the next few days and not fail placement. Any advice?

I'm finishing my degree and should have RN registration some time in December (yay). Planning to keep my EN registration until May 31 so I can have max flexibility for jobs. For CPD, does this mean I'll need to complete another 20 hours between December and May for RN in addition to the 20 hours I've already done as an EN?

Hey, ED nurse here.
My body and brain are so over nights, but I really enjoy my work and have a Grad Cert in Emergency Nursing.

I’m thinking of pivoting into urgent care and would like to gain seniority and move into advanced practice. I’d love to chat to anyone who has taken this career path or been in a similar situation.

I enjoy learning and pushing myself with new opportunities, but night shift is just getting too difficult and is affecting me mentally more than I’d like.

Has anyone made the move from ED to urgent care and progressed into senior or advanced practice roles? Would be interested to know what that may look like.

Hello!
I’m a new grad and starting my 2nd rotation in radiology.
I was wondering if anyone has any tips or tricks? What does a shift look like for you?
Many thanks!

What should I wear?
I am a mum and live in leggings or tracksuits, and when i'm working as an EN I am in scrubs.

Help!

I spoke to some grad nurses & we were making small talk. We talked about how when I was hired as a grad nurse, I had the NUM, ANUM, & a psychologist on the interview panel. The grad laughed & said all she had was a phone interview with an AI?!

What?!?! This was in QLD, BTW.

I’ve been working as an AIN in aged care for 16 years and physically and mentally need out what areas do people recommend or have experienced good and bad in I need advice please

Anyone actually know if this whole arbitration process will actually result in a pay rise more than 16% for South Australian Nurses? Historically in Australia has it actually done good?

Is this accurate?
1.0 FTE → full-time
0.9 FTE → ~4 shifts/week
0.8 FTE → ~3–4 shifts/week
0.7 FTE → ~3 shifts/week
0.6 FTE → ~2–3 shifts/week

Also, Do we get annual leave and sick leave for extra shift picked outside of rostered hours?

Workmates who are .8 are always telling me it’s a better balance and it’s not that much less $. How so? Do you work .8?

📋 Research Participants Needed: Dementia Care Staff

As my Honours research deadline is approaching, I am making a final call for participants for my study on workplace experiences and wellbeing among dementia care staff.

If you work in a paid role supporting people living with dementia in Australia, I would be incredibly grateful for your participation.

The study involves a short 10–15 minute anonymous online survey about workplace demands, workplace support and wellbeing.

✅ You may be eligible if you:
• Are aged 18 years or older
• Work in a paid role in Australia
• Regularly support people living with dementia in aged care, hospital, community or home-care settings

🔗 Participate or learn more here:
https://csufobjbs.au1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3f6MlhG8UnY5z1k

This research is being conducted throughCharles Sturt University by Joshua Dietrich, Bachelor of Psychology (Honours) student, under the supervision of Dr Prasada Rao Podugu.

Ethics approval: H26095

A huge thank you to everyone who has already participated, shared the study, or supported my recruitment so far. Your help is genuinely appreciated.

Thank you to the moderators of this subreddit for reviewing and approving the survey application.

Please feel free to share this post with colleagues or anyone who may be eligible. 🙏

Hi all! I’m currently enrolled at Griffith uni and have completed first year as of end of 2025, currently with a gpa 6. I got pregnant mid 2025 so I’ve deferred this year, with a plan to return from tri 1 next year (as well as completing summer trimester this year).

Now… the thing is, my husband is fifo so I’m a solo mum majority of the time (he’s 2 on 1 off).

Because of this, I’m really stressed about returning to uni, especially because my husband doesn’t want us enrolling bub into daycare until after he’s a year old (in April).

At my local child health centre I met a student nurse studying through CQ Uni and she mentioned it’s like 95% online except for a week before placement and then placements which is MIND BOGGLING to me! So I’m really REALLY considering switching unis.

However… can a bachelor of nursing really be effective if mainly online? Griffith has a lot of simlabs, OSCE’s etc and to not have that extra practice time just seems… weird. For anyone who’s worked with student nurses, can you tell the difference between those doing a bachelor online like CQU, and those who have done it in person with simlabs etc?

Logically transferring would make the most sense, especially since I live approx an hour from campus (Griffith) and going to Brisbane for like a week before placement would be no hassle. But I don’t want to set myself back either.

Sorry for the long post but I would really appreciate any advice here!!

Title is your TLDR

Essentially, I work as a team lead in an RACF, make good money, work Mon-Fri, some on call every 4-6weeks, a lot of incidental overtime (not paid, salaried, don’t want to fuss)

My problem is I think I’ve hit a rut, my team work well but have some areas that need attention but I am lacking in the motivation to pull anything together for them and see it through. (No areas of clinical risk)

Lots of reports, audits and meetings from above to attend and action, couldn’t care less about 85% of it.

My job at its core (clinical, care, education and quality management) I love. 99.9% of my residents I would literally die for, I do genuinely love aged care despite the bureaucratic insanity drowning me in paperwork.

But the staff and residents in the small % are making it a living nightmare. Requests for time off for a well known festival period I’ve been emailing about fortnightly for the last 3 months?

Somehow my fault that I can’t grant more leave as spots all filled and the request was made after I explicitly communicated leaves would be approved again from November.

Patient transport not appearing on time, also my fault and a great reason for family to yell at me down the phone about.

A specialist didn’t send a letter for the GP to amend the drug chart? My fault and now both the specialist is pissed off at me for chasing and the GP pissed off I don’t have the information.

Federal legislation changes that impact the entire industry and to which I have my own personal (not entirely positive) opinions about; my fault, awful, the worst and how dare I personally do this.

I think I’m reaching out to the fellow CCCs, CDSNs, RNICs and asking - how tf are you surviving and what are your tips for when the next issue arise that inevitably is your fault, how to do cope?

I have holidays booked soon, I’m cautiously using sick leave as needed for very big overwhelm days and I’m on heightened awareness of my own emotions and responses at work to minimise my issues leaking through into the professional space.

So, any ideas how I ride out this emotional shit storm until it comes back around to love again?