Orange Hospital welcomes new graduate nurses

The graduates will spend the next 12 months training in the treatment of critically ill patients, through the Transition to Specialty training pathway.

"The Transition to Specialty requires a commitment to undertake formal education covering the theoretical knowledge and skills required to practice in critical care," said Orange Hospital director of nursing and midwifery Joanne Dean.

"The new graduate nurses will gain experience in caring for patients in a variety of settings, including intensive care, coronary care, stroke and the emergency department."

One such nurse who is eager to get going is Merryn Simak-Jones, who comes from a long line of healthcare workers.

"My mum is a nurse, my sister, my brother-in-law and now I'm also a nurse," she said.

"My sister did her new grad here as well a few years ago. Her and her husband both enjoyed it here and said it was a really good hospital to work in and get training from so I followed their path.

"I'd also done three or four placements here before and I really, really liked every one that I did, so I knew I wanted to come back."

The Transition to Specialty pathway started in 2016.

According to NSW Health it has been an "effective way to grow a competent, skilled workforce in rural hospitals".

Ms Simak-Jones moved to Orange just a few weeks ago after living in Bathurst since 2013.

She and her eight other colleagues spent the past few days at orientation before they start their rotations next week.

"We've been doing lots of mandatory training and it's been pretty good so far," Ms Simak-Jones said.

"Everybody we have met so far is lovely and the education and training that we've done has all been the necessary things but presented in a really interesting and engaging way.

"My ultimate hope is I want to complete the new grad program and then Orange offers a second year critical care training rotation which is another reason that I wanted to come here.

"I definitely want to be here for at least five or six years and we'll see where life goes after that."

In the 2020 calendar year, the transition to a specialty pathway had a retention rate of more than 86 per cent of participants.

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