Cross-Industry Columns: Tom Warren

My name is Tom Warren and this year I start my second year of my Bachelor of Nursing on the Bathurst campus.  As a first-year nursing student living on campus last year before the covid outbreak, I learned a lot about my field and myself.

I chose CSU because of its nursing resources, its reputation for nursing education, and because students are encouraged to give back to the local community at every chance possible, whether it be through volunteer work, a full-time job after graduation or on placements. I chose nursing because it’s always been a passion of mine to care for people and to give back and the history of nursing and nurses in my family also nurtured my passion for caring for others and helping in any way I can, and in my degree I hope to graduate and be able to give back to my local community by working in an emergency department in my home town or another small, rural community local to the central west.

There is a shortage of nurses in regional areas.  CSU has encouraged me, as well as my fellow students to try and make a difference by placing us in rural hospitals in a bid to end the rural health care worker shortages. Over my first year I learned the basics of anatomy and physiology, patient centered care and numerous other essential basics for nurses such as how to take vitals and how to administer oral medication, to provide the highest level of care possible.

In my second year I’ll learn even more practical skills like administering IV medication and how to work in hospital settings around and with other nurses. My experience with nursing has reaffirmed what I believed about the profession when I started my degree, that it attracts good, altruistic people across all levels, those who already work in the field, those who teach and those who are willing to learn it.