Margaret Murphy, Clinical Nurse Consultant: He’s concerned about this symptom of difficulty or inability to swallow and that’s really concerning him.
My name is Margaret Murphy and I’m a Clinical Nurse Consultant in the emergency department at Westmead Hospital.
I’ll do the ECG.
A typical day for me could be anything.
Okay, temperature is good.
So I like the physicality of it but I also like the challenge.
When were you in hospital with that armband?
I’m a Clinical Nurse Consultant, so not every day is spent at the clinical coalface, and that’s because in a senior role you have to think about your leadership role.
Come in guys.
I have a research role, and I have an education role.
So today, we’re having a training exercise in the emergency department on the management of a cardiac arrest.
So, this is the response for help.
Do you feel comfortable on the airway there?
It’s about immersive simulation. It’s about making it real so that you apply it, and so that it looks like and feels like the clinical situation that you’re facing.
Yeah, apparently he’s got renal failure. His wife says he’s on dialysis.
So, training allows us to prepare for that. To understand what roles are important. Where they are and who does what. Basically, how to set up a team, and how to work as a team, managing a critical situation.
We see patients at their best in an emergency department, and we absolutely see patients at their worst. And, you know, nurses are able to cope with that.
I think as clinicians, that’s why we find it hard to do other stuff because we just want to be with the patient. And we want that interaction. Spending a day committed to meetings, I have to say to myself everyday I don’t come to work to put in cannulas. I need to do more than that to improve and add to the service.
And that was pretty intense.
Nurses, I suppose, they’re almost the molecular glue that kind of gets that relationship happening between the patient and the nurse, and equally keeps the patient safe.
Alright, now, we’re going to stand up.
They monitor. They assess. They intervene. So it is really all about the patient and everything we do is all about the patient, and when it is, the system works well. And it comes down to that. At every level.