Over fifty years of nursing has given RAN Suzy Pluker a rare perspective on the profession. Here, she shares what she’s learnt along the way.
At 16 years old, Suzy Pluker was at risk of homelessness. A nursing cadetship at Saint George Hospital, offered by an old family friend, would give her a roof over her head and three meals a day. So, of course, she took it.
“And I discovered I loved it,” she says, going on to do her hospital-based training.
Those days in the early 70s were about day-to-day survival for Suzy, and she was barely looking ahead to the future. She never pictured, then, that her nursing career would span over 50 years, as it has.
“Nursing has been very, very good to me. It’s given me a great deal of pleasure. I have made some wonderful friends, and got to travel to some amazing places.”
After working a variety of roles in urban locations, from psych to nurse educator, Suzy came back home to remote South Australia with her two children where she began her RAN career, spending 17 years working at Streaky Bay Hospital before joining an agency and heading out to communities like Tennant Creek, Oddnadatta and Wilcannia.
Wilcannia was one of her “favourite jobs, ever”.
“It’s a tough place, but you get a range of stuff there that you just don’t get in other places.”
“I just found it was a place where, at some point in any given week, you could utilise every bit of knowledge you’ve ever bloody gained.
“When I left Willcania, I was very good at trauma. I swear I could’ve cannulated a bloody rock,” she laughs.
Suzy emphasises that, when you’re in these locations, knowing your basics and being resourceful is crucial.
“We were taught as students to ‘know your ideal’. Understand the principles of care and healing relating to that ideal, and then you can use whatever resources available to you to get as close to that as possible.
“When you’re working remote, and you’ve got very few resources, both human and material, by God, do you rely on that.”
She remembers times of having to put this to use, such as crafting a splint out of foam boxes that the bloods would come in, padded with newspaper, in order to care for a woman whose foot was facing 90 degrees the wrong way after breaking her ankle. Or transferring critical patients to an airstrip in the back of a ute with a blow-up mattress.
“You learn to be very creative,” she says.
“You’re on your tod out there. There’s no team to come and save you.
“When you’re flying by the seat of your pants, and you’re putting your theory into practice, and you’re trying strategies – and you see them work. That sticks with you.”
While the fundamentals of nursing have remained, Suzy has watched the nursing profession itself shift markedly over the past five decades.
“When I graduated, you were faced with med, surgical, theatre, ED and geriatrics. That was about it. In fact, when I was still a student at Prince Henry’s, they got their first married DON. I even remember in first year, a girl got pregnant, and she was made to leave.
“The professional options for nurses now are just wonderful. There are so many areas they can go and specialise in. They can truly follow their interests and find themselves a career path that absolutely suits them, and I just think that is absolutely wonderful.
“I don’t know if the younger nurses fully appreciate that. I tell ‘em,” she chuckles.
“I think one of the biggest benefits is that nurses have truly stepped into an independent profession. It’s good to see.”
Having all this lived experience, Suzy’s advice to new RANs is to find a mentor. And her advice to everyone else is to be open to being that mentor.
“I would encourage all RNs to accept their responsibility to teach the grads the basics. Show them how to sit someone up in bed. Show them how to make a flaming bed! Because they’re the details that aren’t being attended to, but you talk to anyone who has been confined to bed, and they’ll tell you that the making of a bed is very important to them. Those little things.
“I say this to new grads all the time. If you know your basics, then all that added information you’ve got has something to cling to, and then you’re adaptable.
“Really concentrate on knowing the ideal, under- standing the principles. Then you’re in the best position to really learn from any clinical experience you have. Use that to excel in nursing and get into whatever field is taking your damn interest.
“You truly have choice now. Make the most of it.”
