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Hi, everyone, and welcome to the Nursing Live Interactive
Broadcast for Defence Jobs.
My name is Lieutenant Todd Austin.
I'm a Public Affairs Officer with the
Royal Australian Navy.
With me this evening is Major Paul Krohn, a Senior Nursing
Officer in the Army.
Now Paul will be answering your questions, as well as
sharing a bit about his own experiences in the Army.
Welcome, Paul.
Thank you, Todd.
Now, Paul, before we jump into the questions, could you tell
us a little bit more about yourself?
I can do that, for sure.
I'm a nurse in the Army.
I've been a nurse in the Army for 12 years, an ICU nurse.
I've got 16 years nursing experience, and
I'm a clinical teacher.
I'm currently based at the surgical hospital in Brisbane,
at Enoggera Barracks.
And have been there for two years now.
Excellent.
Well, I'm looking forward to finding out
more about your career.
What you have been up to so far, and the experiences that
you have had.
So we had better get into our first question for tonight.
Why would you recommend joining the
Defence Force as a nurse?
The challenges, as a military nurse, grow and
develop you as a nurse.
It's comfortable working in a civilian environment.
I found it comfortable.
I was comfortable, and I was, not complacent, but I needed
something else to be challenged by.
I needed something else to just say, there's a different
facet of nursing which I've not yet explored.
And that's why I joined Defence.
To challenge myself as a nurse in that space.
Travel's pretty good, too.
Travel's fantastic, yeah.
All right.
Yeah.
Does an Army nurse get much clinical work on the job, or
is it more administrative work?
Paul?
It's an excellent balance of both.
We're not just bedside clinicians, Grant.
We're also required to be commanders, leaders, and
managers, clinical teachers, as well as
equipment fleet managers.
So it provides defensive capability with a broad range
of skills in order to provide that health care in the field
that's required from a Defence clinician.
We do a lot of administrative work, but that is to support
the work that we do clinically at the bedside.
Yeah.
OK.
So what would you say would be the major difference between,
say, a civilian clinical side and a military clinical side?
It would be the environment in which we work.
Tense, hard-standing, not hospital buildings, as opposed
to a comfortable four-walled hospital.
In this case, an intensive care unit that I worked in in
Canberra for a while before joining Defence.
So there are differences, but there are a lot of some
similarities, as well?
There are many similarities.
The main similarity is that the concept of our providing
quality, timely, and effective health care.
And the concept of nursing care transcends political and
religious boundaries, not only in the civilian sector, but in
the military setting, as well.
Have you served alongside the Navy and the Air Force?
And what roles, and where have you done this?
Mark, I've served with Navy and Air Force for the Banda
Aceh, Boxing Day tsunami, overseas, and here on
exercises in Central Queensland and North
Queensland.
We've served as health professionals together.
So intensive care, operating theatre, ward nursing, primary
health care, and outpatient's nursing.
We are all trained similarly, and provide that care, despite
our various Service arms.
So the fact that you, in different Services--
I'm the Navy, you're in the Army, and
you've got the Air Force--
the only difference is the service roles, not really the
medical roles?
The medical roles remain the same.
There are some Service specific nuances, such as Navy
serving on ships, and Air Force taking care of the
long-range strategic medical evacuation jobs.
The tenets of nursing care remain the same despite the
service roles.
What are the benefits of working full time as a nursing
officer, as opposed to working part time in the Reserves?
Working part time in the Reserves gives you an
excellent grasp of your role as a clinician in
the civilian setting.
Working as a full time clinician gives you exposure,
as well, to a range of skills not often
afforded a bedside clinician.
So I talked about the management skills.
I talked about those as a clinical teacher.
We're required not only to be clinical, but to have an
exposure to the management, and education, and fleet
management side of the house, as well.
And that's something a full time nursing in the Army, for
me, gives me.
I guess makes me more marketable once I decide I may
want to transition to the Reserves, or lay-Defense,
altogether.
I become a product that is seen as an ability that add a
capability to public or private sector.
Are you always working in a team environment?
Or have there have been times where you have had to make
informed decisions under stressful
circumstances by yourself?
Both.
As a military nurse we work as a team, and we prefer to work
as a team, though there are situations where we have been
deployed remotely with only phone communications to a
doctor or a nurse practitioner.
What remains, regardless of the team or individual
environment, is the concept of doing good, doing no harm,
patient autonomy, and the greatest good for
the greatest number.
And the application of those tenets of nursing care, and
care in general, have stood us in good stead, even though
we're placed under situations of stress in remote locations.
What's been, I suppose, the most basic
situation you've been in?
You mentioned earlier about trying to get outside the four
walls of an ICU unit.
What's the most basic place that you've operated in?
The most basic place would be Banda Aceh in the immediate
period following the tsunami, working in and outpatient's
department.
And as we're speaking about this now, it's all flooding
back to mind.
And I can see these pictures in my mind as if were
yesterday, where we're caring for people in these not well
constructed hospitals, damaged from the tsunami, and damaged
from the aftershocks.
Working on host nation civilians who don't speak
their language, we don't speak their language.
And being able to apply care in those situations, without
needing to speak the language, is
something that was rewarding.
But that's the most basic place, in an environment where
you see so much damage and devastation, yet you can still
reach out and make a difference in your own tiny
sphere of influence.
Yeah.
What's involved with the actual
specific officer training?
We did touch on it a very, very briefly bit.
If you can, sort of, give us an average day.
Would you get up at, say, 0500, do an hour's worth of
PT, then go to lectures for four hours?
What was sort of an average day
during the office training?
The officer training, for me, was four weeks at the Officer
Training School in Duntroon, the Officer College.
So we did get up at 5:00 and do some PT, and then put on
our uniforms and were in lectures for most of the day.
We learned how to march, how to wear our uniform, how to
stay fit, how to keep fit.
We were taught how to use weapons, how to carry packs,
how to put together all of our field equipment, and what we
needed to do to survive in remote location.
Ration packs, and some field craft skills, navigation, and
a few of those things that are basic fundamental skills to
that of a military officer.
And so, you're not only as specialist in the medical
field, you need to have an understanding of what it's
like to be in, say, the military environment.
You do wear a soldier's uniform, so you have to be a
soldier, as well.
We need to have a relation grasp of what they're taught
and how they learn so that we can provide care for them,
given that we know what they're going through, or what
they have been through.
Do you find that it would be an advantage to you as a
medical practitioner that you understand what sort of
training they do, and what sort of exercises they go on?
Does that help you, say if there are injuries or
something does happen, having an understanding of what they
may have been doing?
Do you find that would be beneficial?
Understanding their training gives us an impression, an
accurate impression, of injury patterns and illness patterns,
which, at my level now, as a Senior Manager, allows me to
inform practise and inform the way doctrine is written about
training of soldiers.
And that's another good example of what I can do now,
where we're health operations planners.
So for operations that are currently going on, or
exercises, or training environments, health support
is provided by people like myself, and senior medics, and
doctors with regard to the best way to train and support
these people.
Have you been deployed?
And what was it for?
We spoke about the Banda Aceh deployment, but you've also
been overseas in other areas, as well?
I have.
I've had six overseas deployments, Josey.
And I'm about to deploy again next week.
I've been to East Timor, Solomon Islands to help out
with the peacekeeping mission there, too Banda Aceh for the
Boxing Day tsunami, and in the following March of 2005, there
was an earthquake in Indonesia that I came
and helped out with.
I spent four months in Iraq, in the Middle East, helping
out with the coalition and providing support
to the local people.
And then spent some time on a Navy ship, the HMS Kanimbla,
in 2006, floating off the coast of Fiji, supporting the
local nationals there, as well as the
Australian Defence Force.
And I'm off to Papua New Guinea nest week to do some
humanitarian work, and some engineering support work in
Port Moresby.
So plenty of opportunities to use your skills and put them
into practise where it's required.
That's right.
You said you deployed to Iraq.
What was your role in Iraq, as a nursing officer?
My role was as the night shift.
I did four months of night shift in Iraq, in the ICU.
So I did night shift in charge of the Intensive Care Unit.
So there were 30 beds--
and those of you in the ICU space will do the numbers on
this as I tell you--
19 ventilated patients, so specialist care.
The rest were high dependency patients.
And I had 8 to 10 staff available to me on nights.
So we worked a busy workload within some challenging and
compelling shift roster work.
That was my job as the in-charge nurse for the
Coalition Intensive Care at night, for
that four months period.
All right.
A little bit different to doing humanitarian aid work?
There are--
initially I thought so.
But there are humanitarian casualties of war as well as
natural disasters.
So the care we provided the so-called humanitarian
casualties of the War on Terror were the same sort of
care we provided those in the Banda Aceh Boxing Day tsunami.
When you're not deployed, what are the main responsibilities
you have at your work, with or in civilian hospitals?
My main role in Barracks is as a clinical leader, and a
clinical teacher.
And when I'm not in Barracks, c I'm placed in Intensive Care
Units in trauma centres, currently in Brisbane, for the
purpose of remaining clinically current, as is my
mandate as a Defence Force clinician, and a
clinician in general.
Do you find it always interesting--
I know that you've mentioned there are differences between
the civilian side and the military side, but 9:00 to
5:00 you're in a military environment, next week, you
know you're going to be back in a civilian hospital.
Does it make you nervous?
Or is it just like riding the bike, going from one
environment to the other?
Oh it's like it's like riding a bike.
The basic clinical skills are the same.
And the concept of providing care is the same.
There may be some different ways of doing business.
And once you become familiar with those business rules, and
familiar with the environment, too, then
you're off and sailing.
Excellent.
Do you have any regrets about choosing military nursing over
civilian work?
I have none.
No.
No.
It's something that you'll probably get sick
of hearing me saying.
But it's something that's grown and
developed me in nursing.
And probably made me more textured a clinician for
having done so, just because of the vast array of
experiences, and how they've developed me over these past
12 years as a nurse, and as a person.
It was touched on very briefly, earlier on, if you
were in the position where you've served your time in the
Defence and you'd like to leave, how transferable are
the skills you've been able to gain in your career?
The skills are highly desirable and transferable.
We become a product that is marketable in the public and
private sector, certainly, in terms of providing these
sectors with well-rounded nurses who have the ability to
operate in a fairly lean environment.
And keep in mind, if you do leave full-time military as a
nursing officer, there's always the Reserve stream.
And that's a common option that's taken by full-time
clinicians.
To transition to civilian life through the Reserves, and stay
in the Reserve environment.
Get the best of both worlds.
Get the best of both worlds, yeah.
Excellent.
I'm thinking of joining the Army as a nurse after I
graduate, but my mum thinks it's really rough for women.
Do you have any advice?
This a great question, Michelle.
It is a great question, Michelle.
Rough for a woman?
No, it's not.
It's a challenging environment for everyone,
male and female .
And as a nurse, you're exposed to things in the military and
in the civilian sector that challenge you.
Is it rough for a woman?
It's not rough, no.
No rougher than it is for a male in that role.
And I know, in Matt's mind, when I was going through the
initial training side, and even on deployments, if it
does get a little bit tense, or a little bit stressful,
that's what your mates are for, that's what your comrades
are for, that's what the people you go through your
training are for.
You do have you support network.
And the mateship, we talked about earlier, is paramount to
longevity and survivability in the clinical environment, the
military clinical environment, even more so, or just as much
as it is with the other trades and professions
in all three services.
Well that brings us to the end of our allotted time,
unfortunately.
Thank you, for joining us.
We've had some great questions this evening.
And we hope that we've been able to provide you with the
information you need.
Remember, you can always find out more information at
defensejobs.gov.au.
Now if we didn't get to your questions, remember the Health
Specialist Recruitment Team will contact you shortly.
I would like to thank Major Paul Krohn
for his time tonight.
Todd, thank you.
Thanks, Paul.
If you'd like to watch this evening's broadcast again, it
will be available online next week via the
defensejobs.gov.au website.
Thanks for watching, and have a great night.