No matter what path you choose, nursing is a meaningful and intellectually-stimulating career choice. Are you ready? The doors of life are swinging open.
As soon as you push open the doors, you’re greeted with a bustling department full of nurses, patients, specialists, and orderlies. What awaits you today? Will you be reassuring and educating a worried patient, assisting a pregnant woman with early labour signs, rushing to an incoming emergency, or checking a patient’s vital signs as they recover from surgery? Check the fob watch on your uniform because time is about to fly.
There is no boring day in nursing. This is just your average workday.
Would a career in nursing suit you?
Is nursing on your list of possible careers? If so, you’re in good company because this is one of Australia’s most popular degrees. Take a moment to reflect on the moments that make you feel alive and skills you show aptitude for and see if you identify with any of the below.
Do you:
- See yourself as a natural helper?
- Appreciate how important physical, mental and emotional wellbeing is?
- Enjoy science-based subjects?
- Have genuine interest and care for others?
- Practice active listening?
- Have a non-judgemental nature?
- Approach problems logically and methodically?
- Prefer a career where you get to move around and/or talk to people?
- Feel confident making decisions?
- Work well in a team?
Think you have the right qualities that’ll make a great nurse? Explore the courses, facilities, and resources we offer at our School of Nursing.
What kind of career can you have in nursing?
Nurses are essential in every single country on earth, and it’s one of Australia’s most common professions. Let’s take a look at careers you might enjoy as a Bachelor of Nursing graduate.
Critical care nursing
This is where you want to be if you like a fast-paced, exciting environment where anything can – and does – happen. You might work in an emergency department or intensive care seeing every type of injury, ailment and situation, in coronary care, or paediatric intensive care, or even on a plane flying into remote Australia with the Royal Flying Doctor Service!
Community nursing
You usually won’t be working in a hospital as a community nurse. You might be providing education and screening at schools, health promotion in First Nations or refugee communities, or visiting elderly patients at home to help them stay independent and healthy.
Healthcare management
Great leaders and managers are crucial in the health industry. If you’d prefer a job that is less ‘on the tools’ and more geared toward making decisions and creating a better environment for nurses, you might like this speciality. You’ll understand ethics, people management, safety, quality, and policy.
There’s a world of possibility for postgraduate study to further your skillset, including:
- A Master of Health Care Management if you’re interested in leadership.
- A Graduate Certificate in Contemporary Mental Health, which provides the specialist skills needed for this growing area of healthcare, and
- A Graduate Certificate in Gerontological Healthcare, educating graduates to support our ageing society.
Get to know more about our school and the outstanding academic team.
Where can a nursing career take you? Hear from Emerita Professor Cathy Fetherston as she discusses career progression and career mobility.
Picture where a degree from Murdoch could take you
People often assume nursing is all about scrubs and hospital wards. Whilst this is a common path, it’s far from the only one.
In your future career you might:
- Work in the unpredictable and fast-paced realm of emergency care.
- Assist with life-changing surgery.
- Collect evidence and support victims of crime as a forensic nurse.
- Work in a day clinic with a great work-life balance.
- Assess unwell children at a school.
- Aid people having an acute mental health crisis.
- Find your passion in clinical research or academia, or
- Be a nurse educator, educating other nurses or members of the public.
Can I get a job? Future-proof your career
Healthcare is one of Australia’s largest and fastest-growing industries. It is recession-proof with jobs always in demand. There is career progression and plenty of side steps you can take into new specialties if you’d like a new environment.
What advantages does Murdoch provide? We’re the type of school where you’ll have hands-on learning well before graduation, and in nursing you get an incredible 840 hours of work experience where you’ll experience various settings. Then there’s our state-of-the-art Sim Suites which will prepare you for the realities of nursing, plus our e-portfolio which is highly-attractive to employers.
We’re continually redesigning units that are responsive to contemporary issues that healthcare professionals are dealing with every day. An example is the Gerontology Graduate Certificate that looks at the current aged care reforms coming out of the Royal Commission into Aged Care, as well as the impact of Covid-19 on the older population and the challenges that presented.
Feel secure knowing you’ve had a great head start with our strong industry prospects, including Fiona Stanley Hospital where students have the opportunity to connect and network with those in their chosen field and the Peel Health Campus located close to our School in Mandurah.
Welcome to your very first step in your career in nursing.