Joanne Neophyton
Resume
I’ve been a Registered Nurse since 1989 after graduating from Western Sydney University (formerly Macarthur Institute of Higher education), spending the most time working in High Dependency Gastro -Intestinal surgical nursing at Prince of Wales Private hospital and Occupational Health Nursing. I entered the nursing education arena early in my nursing career, facilitating student RN’s from many Universities in many Sydney hospitals over the years.
I fulfilled a lifelong career dream and became a flight attendant and Cabin Services Manager for Qantas and Jetstar for 8 years, and my nursing knowledge certainly came in handy with many on board medical emergencies. I continued nursing on my days off (I liked nursing too much to leave the profession).
I’m currently working casually at Pittwater Day Surgery, where I have the opportunity to bring Health Services Assistance students from NBMC into the surgical setting. One of my HSA students loved it so much, the Day Surgery employed her as soon as she finished her course!
Many other Certificate III in Health Services Assistance and Individual Support students have gone on to further studies in nursing, either moving on to Enrolled Nursing, or on to becoming Registered Nurses. Some students are employed in Aged care after studying with us, and it’s not unusual for me to see a whole ward of ex -students from the College happily working with residents in various facilities on the Northern Beaches. Some of our students have moved on to other courses from Health Services Assistance and Individual Support, eg Certificate IV in Leisure and Health, Certificate IV in Ageing Support and Certificate IV in Community Services and found wonderful jobs after graduating. Students, who have previous experience, have also found great jobs during the courses too.
I’ve been a Trainer/Assessor at Northern Beaches & Mosman College for 10 years. I love everything about training, but the icing on the cake is when I see my students enter careers in healthcare that they absolutely love. Assistant Nurse, Health Care assistant, Care/support Worker- whatever you wish to call the role in healthcare, is virtually ‘bombproof’ and I have not been out of a job for over 30 years. I highly recommend a career in Health and Community services as there are always jobs out there, and you can move into your preferred areas of healthcare relatively easily.