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Why do Australian Nurses think they are thre best in the world

Why do Australian Nurses think they are thre best in the world

Old Jan 8th 2011, 9:20 pm
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Default Why do Australian Nurses think they are thre best in the world

I work in Melbourne and to me and many immigrant nurses that I work with, there seems to be this feeling that Australian Nurses believe they are better than everyone else.

Experience from other countries is not recognized and they regularly undermine overseas Nurses.

I an an emergency nurse with 10 years emergency experience, I trained in the UK and this is my 3rd country that I have lived/worked in. I don't have a post grad diploma/cert and if i want to do any more than a new grad can do I need this qualification. So I can't work in resus, can't triage, and am limited with the acuity of the patients I see. Its the same for everyone who doesn't have a post grad. If I wanted to spend 18 months doing a post grad it would cost around 14000$ to 18000$ buck that I would have to pay for. I am not eligible for a HEX loan or grants etc. My pay would only increase by 50 bucks a fortnight with this qualification.

To be totally honest the attitude of some of the staff particularly the educators has put me off emergency nursing, I totally hate it now. So am looking at working community, something I thought I would do when I was in my 10 yrs prior to retirement lol not when I am 31. When I started i showed them the competencies from the NHS, they both asked me what 'NHS Trust' meant and turned their noses up at it. Like they pretended they didn't know what the NHS is, scary if they weren't pretending, surely they read papers written in the UK!!

Now I am a part timer and work is merely a means to an ends, I used to love it but Melbourne hospitals have sucked all of that out of me. Seriously do not move for your career unless you are prepared to spend big bucks to get your post grad qualifications.
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Old Jan 9th 2011, 8:12 am
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Default Re: Why do Australian Nurses think they are thre best in the world

Hi

I find this horrible that a nurse with 10 years A&E cant do resus ?. The hospital I work in love UK nurses , maybe its a bit of nurse bullying going on . I do have Dip He , but would be useless in A&E Resus ?.

You are a division one nurse with a wealth of experience. Th educators should support you , and for $20 more its not worth it.

I found A&E staff a little ' chip on the shoulder at times ' just ride above it.

Have you looked at other areas of Melbourne. Dont let it get you down.

:down:
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Old Jan 9th 2011, 8:19 am
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Default Re: Why do Australian Nurses think they are thre best in the world

Originally Posted by Sugo
Like they pretended they didn't know what the NHS is, scary if they weren't pretending, surely they read papers written in the UK!!
Why would you assume that everyone reads papers written in the UK or knows what the NHS trust is? This is Australia, not UK. Before coming here did you read Australian papers and know about Medicare or Victoria's nursing boards?

And in answer to your question, probably for the same reason UK trained nurses or American trained nurses or any other country's trained nurses think they are the best.
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Old Jan 9th 2011, 8:45 am
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Default Re: Why do Australian Nurses think they are thre best in the world

Originally Posted by Sugo
I work in Melbourne and to me and many immigrant nurses that I work with, there seems to be this feeling that Australian Nurses believe they are better than everyone else.

Experience from other countries is not recognized and they regularly undermine overseas Nurses.

I an an emergency nurse with 10 years emergency experience, I trained in the UK and this is my 3rd country that I have lived/worked in. I don't have a post grad diploma/cert and if i want to do any more than a new grad can do I need this qualification. So I can't work in resus, can't triage, and am limited with the acuity of the patients I see. Its the same for everyone who doesn't have a post grad. If I wanted to spend 18 months doing a post grad it would cost around 14000$ to 18000$ buck that I would have to pay for. I am not eligible for a HEX loan or grants etc. My pay would only increase by 50 bucks a fortnight with this qualification.

To be totally honest the attitude of some of the staff particularly the educators has put me off emergency nursing, I totally hate it now. So am looking at working community, something I thought I would do when I was in my 10 yrs prior to retirement lol not when I am 31. When I started i showed them the competencies from the NHS, they both asked me what 'NHS Trust' meant and turned their noses up at it. Like they pretended they didn't know what the NHS is, scary if they weren't pretending, surely they read papers written in the UK!!

Now I am a part timer and work is merely a means to an ends, I used to love it but Melbourne hospitals have sucked all of that out of me. Seriously do not move for your career unless you are prepared to spend big bucks to get your post grad qualifications.
I found the same in Brisbane,from nurse educators who wouldn't be good enough to clean my shoes
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Old Jan 9th 2011, 10:58 am
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Default Re: Why do Australian Nurses think they are thre best in the world

Originally Posted by Dorothy
Why would you assume that everyone reads papers written in the UK or knows what the NHS trust is? This is Australia, not UK. Before coming here did you read Australian papers and know about Medicare or Victoria's nursing boards?

And in answer to your question, probably for the same reason UK trained nurses or American trained nurses or any other country's trained nurses think they are the best.
I think the post was a bit of feeling venerable , dont take offence. I find once you land in Australia you sink or swim and myself I have felt venerable at times.

Some things are not published in papers.

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Old Jan 9th 2011, 11:59 am
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Default Re: Why do Australian Nurses think they are thre best in the world

Originally Posted by Sugo
I work in Melbourne and to me and many immigrant nurses that I work with, there seems to be this feeling that Australian Nurses believe they are better than everyone else.

Experience from other countries is not recognized and they regularly undermine overseas Nurses.

I an an emergency nurse with 10 years emergency experience, I trained in the UK and this is my 3rd country that I have lived/worked in. I don't have a post grad diploma/cert and if i want to do any more than a new grad can do I need this qualification. So I can't work in resus, can't triage, and am limited with the acuity of the patients I see. Its the same for everyone who doesn't have a post grad. If I wanted to spend 18 months doing a post grad it would cost around 14000$ to 18000$ buck that I would have to pay for. I am not eligible for a HEX loan or grants etc. My pay would only increase by 50 bucks a fortnight with this qualification.

To be totally honest the attitude of some of the staff particularly the educators has put me off emergency nursing, I totally hate it now. So am looking at working community, something I thought I would do when I was in my 10 yrs prior to retirement lol not when I am 31. When I started i showed them the competencies from the NHS, they both asked me what 'NHS Trust' meant and turned their noses up at it. Like they pretended they didn't know what the NHS is, scary if they weren't pretending, surely they read papers written in the UK!!

Now I am a part timer and work is merely a means to an ends, I used to love it but Melbourne hospitals have sucked all of that out of me. Seriously do not move for your career unless you are prepared to spend big bucks to get your post grad qualifications.
Oooo I'm going to have to put this one past the Mrs.
I can appreciate your frustration as we've been through it.
You probably resent the fact that you have retrain but if your after job satisfaction your just going to have to bite the bullet and get that qualification.
We came out here over 20 yrs ago my wife was an experienced ICU nurse(EN)
and like you was unable to do any of the work here that she was able to do in the UK.
She retrained,got the Degree and is now an A&E Educator in Melbourne.
It's a shame you haven't met in a professional capacity as you might have had a more sympathetic response than you have received so far.
Hope it works out for you.
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Old Jan 9th 2011, 12:02 pm
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Default Re: Why do Australian Nurses think they are thre best in the world

No nurses are paid enough.

Nurses in the UK are brill

The nurses I have met in Oz are just as good and seem to be better staffed and under less pressure.
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Old Jan 9th 2011, 1:06 pm
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Default Re: Why do Australian Nurses think they are thre best in the world

Originally Posted by Indented Head
I think the post was a bit of feeling venerable , dont take offence. I find once you land in Australia you sink or swim and myself I have felt venerable at times.

Some things are not published in papers.

Venerable or vulnerable?
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Old Jan 9th 2011, 10:15 pm
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Default Re: Why do Australian Nurses think they are thre best in the world

Originally Posted by Dorothy
Venerable or vulnerable?
Sorry Dorothy I mean Vulnerable , Once again Sorry.
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Old Jan 10th 2011, 12:26 am
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Default Re: Why do Australian Nurses think they are thre best in the world

Any time you move countries and want to work there, you have to fit in. If they need certificates, you gotta get them. That doesn't excuse the attitude you've encountered. We had UK nurses where I worked in Melbourne and they were generally good, we certainly didn't think we were any better than them.

I had to sit a stupid licensing exam for the US covering things I learned in nursing school, 12 years after graduation. I had to pay thousands to get all sorts of stupid useless certificates... because that's what they wanted, and I wanted to play in their field. Just the way it is when you transfer your credentials overseas.
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Old Jan 10th 2011, 10:18 am
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Default Re: Why do Australian Nurses think they are thre best in the world

Originally Posted by Dorothy
Why would you assume that everyone reads papers written in the UK or knows what the NHS trust is? This is Australia, not UK. Before coming here did you read Australian papers and know about Medicare or Victoria's nursing boards?

And in answer to your question, probably for the same reason UK trained nurses or American trained nurses or any other country's trained nurses think they are the best.
Dorothy, I do agree with the other posters response to your above comment. Some do have to ignore any negative aspects of their move just to keep going.

I would hope that the educators have read nursing papers from the UK, especially since the way health service delivery here often takes on some of the UK perspectives.

As said in the original post, this is my second move. My last job in New Zealand was great in making sure I could practice to the level I did in the UK. They were more 'enabling' than the Aussie educators/managers. I still had to do papers and exams, I did my NZRC level 6 and the TNCC. I didn't have to pay for them and was given paid leave to attend the study days.

Here in Oz we are expected to pay for the courses and use out annual leave to attend Uni. The last intake had to use all of their annual leave for a year to do their post grad dips. They were not supported very well at all by the educators. One of them had to come in during sleep time in the middle of her nightshifts to do a education session. It seemed that she was given this date so she could fit into the educators schedule.

Even some of the Aussie nurses on the floor are saying their seems to be some kind of discrimination against overseas nurses in my department. Apparently we are one of the better departments.

I have no problem with jumping through hoops, but I dont like being treated like a child and don't like the idea of paying 14000bucks and loosing a year of annual leave for little return. I know there are better places to work out there, but most are out of the city center, at the moment its the better the devil you know. I'm waiting for a community job, maybe with a homeless unit to come up.

Thanks for the replies, unfortunately my experiences are not unique, and I meet plenty of nurses who feel the same way. Australia needs to improve how they treat overseas nurse. Also there own to some respect, you have to go to square one if you change jobs even within the state. Unless you have a post grad that is, and one of the last intakes course was rated so poor that there qualifications were not recognised so they wasted all the hard work and money. The course lost accreditation or something.
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Old Jan 11th 2011, 1:30 pm
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Default Re: Why do Australian Nurses think they are thre best in the world

Originally Posted by Sugo
Dorothy, I do agree with the other posters response to your above comment. Some do have to ignore any negative aspects of their move just to keep going.

I would hope that the educators have read nursing papers from the UK, especially since the way health service delivery here often takes on some of the UK perspectives.

As said in the original post, this is my second move. My last job in New Zealand was great in making sure I could practice to the level I did in the UK. They were more 'enabling' than the Aussie educators/managers. I still had to do papers and exams, I did my NZRC level 6 and the TNCC. I didn't have to pay for them and was given paid leave to attend the study days.

Here in Oz we are expected to pay for the courses and use out annual leave to attend Uni. The last intake had to use all of their annual leave for a year to do their post grad dips. They were not supported very well at all by the educators. One of them had to come in during sleep time in the middle of her nightshifts to do a education session. It seemed that she was given this date so she could fit into the educators schedule.

Even some of the Aussie nurses on the floor are saying their seems to be some kind of discrimination against overseas nurses in my department. Apparently we are one of the better departments.

I have no problem with jumping through hoops, but I dont like being treated like a child and don't like the idea of paying 14000bucks and loosing a year of annual leave for little return. I know there are better places to work out there, but most are out of the city center, at the moment its the better the devil you know. I'm waiting for a community job, maybe with a homeless unit to come up.

Thanks for the replies, unfortunately my experiences are not unique, and I meet plenty of nurses who feel the same way. Australia needs to improve how they treat overseas nurse. Also there own to some respect, you have to go to square one if you change jobs even within the state. Unless you have a post grad that is, and one of the last intakes course was rated so poor that there qualifications were not recognised so they wasted all the hard work and money. The course lost accreditation or something.
This is a very good posting , I find nurses often loose respect for each other and battle the system to be the best.

The best to me is the one who says ' good morning how are you ' or ' let me show you how we do it ' or even ' can I help ' .

Not the ones who find pointless faults , these people are often the work area bullies .

One thing that keeps me going in Australia is the reference I got from my manager in the NHS , and the Patients who said to me ' Thank you '.

Don't listen to the ' I am the best ' and listen to your Patients and be proud of your knowledge. If you are not a worthy nurse why did the country give you a visa.

Be proud , not competitive. Your skills and knowledge will be noticed from the ' Good People ' .

The one who is ' In the pool ' is the senior Ring Leader and needs to get lost on the yellow brick road.
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Old Jan 12th 2011, 8:20 am
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Default Re: Why do Australian Nurses think they are thre best in the world

Originally Posted by Sugo
I work in Melbourne and to me and many immigrant nurses that I work with, there seems to be this feeling that Australian Nurses believe they are better than everyone else.

Experience from other countries is not recognized and they regularly undermine overseas Nurses.

I an an emergency nurse with 10 years emergency experience, I trained in the UK and this is my 3rd country that I have lived/worked in. I don't have a post grad diploma/cert and if i want to do any more than a new grad can do I need this qualification. So I can't work in resus, can't triage, and am limited with the acuity of the patients I see. Its the same for everyone who doesn't have a post grad. If I wanted to spend 18 months doing a post grad it would cost around 14000$ to 18000$ buck that I would have to pay for. I am not eligible for a HEX loan or grants etc. My pay would only increase by 50 bucks a fortnight with this qualification.

To be totally honest the attitude of some of the staff particularly the educators has put me off emergency nursing, I totally hate it now. So am looking at working community, something I thought I would do when I was in my 10 yrs prior to retirement lol not when I am 31. When I started i showed them the competencies from the NHS, they both asked me what 'NHS Trust' meant and turned their noses up at it. Like they pretended they didn't know what the NHS is, scary if they weren't pretending, surely they read papers written in the UK!!

Now I am a part timer and work is merely a means to an ends, I used to love it but Melbourne hospitals have sucked all of that out of me. Seriously do not move for your career unless you are prepared to spend big bucks to get your post grad qualifications.
It is not just in Oz I will have you know. I have seen and experienced similar here in Canada, and my first week here in Critical care I had 2 nurses here tell me that a male nurse from UK went back after 6 months as he did not fit in. But from the reception I got that first day I could see why, not very friendly nor professional!
I too work in the community, far better!

All I can say is.. good and bad everywhere, some think they are better than others, and UK nurses well sorry to have to say this but we are world recognized and highly trained, and I can't speak for Australia but trust me when I can say Canada is not ahead of us in the UK, and many of them even admitted that they are behind us, and some examples are the fact we have experience in a broad area, not just in one ward for the past 10 yrs. When they heard of the experience I had in 6 yrs on moving over to Canada 4 yrs ago, they were really shocked and impressed at how much I had, and that is how I learned from them how limited theirs had been as they had only just started moving around as it was all more limited for them up to now, so a bit behind I can say.

That said, some things are done better here, such as IV medications are already mixed and ready to give, that's a huge time management plus point, as IV's as we know take time to prepare first when mixing, and the more patients to manage the more time lost on it.

I can't say the interpersonal skills is as good or as well highly trained as we are back in UK. Again though, I know not all schools of nursing are high standard trained back in UK, and I found that when I worked in London and came across some in UK I had to work with (I am from the UK, not cause confusion to anyone reading this).
So some schools of nursing are not as thorough and high standard as mine was for example, and I mean that sincerely from feedback from others I worked with in other areas back in the UK, who had a problem getting jobs when I always got offered them there, one even said, "it is okay for you, you trained at that uni and getting work for you is not so hard, but for me it has been a struggle"

Just something to be aware of.

On the whole though, here I have not seen it good and bad at different training venues for them, I have just seen a consistency of bad interpersonal skills and not been overly impressed, especially the time I was a patient myself giving birth to my Son just over a year ago, and like other patients in there, within 24 hrs I wanted to self discharge to get out of there and have my space!
A mutual respect, and respecting a client's wishes, and also entering someone's home (home care nursing) is about respecting that environment and not taking over it. I had a midwife or two that tended to take over mine, irritatingly, and did not respect my wishes. I made the effort to get to all my appointments at their end to avoid them coming to mine in the end.
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Old Jan 12th 2011, 11:42 pm
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Default Re: Why do Australian Nurses think they are thre best in the world

i felt i had landed on Mars on my first week!!!! everything was strange at work..went home crying....i was actually asked if i knew how to answer a 'phone !!!!!

then one of the CN's ( a Pom) took me aside and explained that they dont have to adapt to me, i have to adapt to them as i am in Oz now not the UK and it IS different.

so i sucked it up like a good princess...didn't pay a bloody fortune for any post grad courses...helped other UK nurses settle into the dept and that 'culture shock' ( its happened to everyone so far!)

the crazy thing is, is that the majority of our nurses are English/Scottish

Gotta love it

Deb
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Old Jan 17th 2011, 10:50 pm
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Default Re: Why do Australian Nurses think they are thre best in the world

Originally Posted by Sugo

My last job in New Zealand was great in making sure I could practice to the level I did in the UK. They were more 'enabling' than the Aussie educators/managers. I still had to do papers and exams, I did my NZRC level 6 and the TNCC. I didn't have to pay for them and was given paid leave to attend the study days.
One of the many benefits of nursing in NZ, is the ability to access paid for study. There is also a scheme that used to be called CTA (Clinical Training Agency) and is now Health Workforce NZ that FULLY FUNDS post graduate nursing study, Level 8 papers (Masters level).

NZ has so many internationally trained/educated nurses that there certainly doesn't appear to be the same sort of attitude that seems to prevail in Australia.

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