Sandra Warden

This is Talking Urology.

Joseph Ischia: I’m Talking Urology today with Sandra Warden, who is a nurse practitioner, from Redcliffe Hospital in Queensland and she is the winner of the Diamond Scholarship awarded by Boston Scientific. So, Sandra it’s one of the most prestigious awards associated with the ANZUNS committee, can you tell us a little more about it?

Sandra Warden: Yeah sure. It’s $5000 to go towards a professional development activity and what I’ve decided to do is to go to the BAUN conference in the U.K. and also to do a site visit to watch how other nurse practitioners perform their practice. There was a white paper in 2010 called freeing the NHS or something like that, and since that time they’ve had a lot of health reforms and so they’ve been able to create a lot of change in terms of patient care and patient experience and access to care. And so, that’s what I really am going to have a look at to see how they’ve been able to do that.

Joseph Ischia: Are they doing things better than we are here in Australia or are there things that you’re hoping to achieve that they do?

Sandra Warden: Well, it’s not so much the specifics of what they do as much as expanding my mind to see how other people do things differently. So, it may not be that I bring back specific ideas but it’s about expanding my mind so that I can think better about what we need here.

Joseph Ischia: Clearly this is about developing leaders and, you know, whether it’s urologists or nurses, you need people that are mixing with the best in the world. It sounds like it’s a wonderful opportunity for you to do that, so congratulations.

Sandra Warden: Thank you.

Joseph Ischia: And when you come back what are your obligations when you get back, do you need to give talks or a presentation anywhere?

Sandra Warden: Sure, so what I need to do is provide a report to ANZUNS and that’s a written report and a verbal report as well at next year’s meeting, and also I’d like to report back to my local area at QUNS and also to the hospital, of course, you know, bring back ideas and thoughts and things like that. And there might be things that they see us do that that they think is a great idea, you know. So, it’s all about exchanging ideas and just stimulating that thought process.

Joseph Ischia: Excellent. Well, it sounds like what a great opportunity, and thank you very much to Boston Scientific for supporting the urological field. Thank you, Sandra.

Sandra Warden: Thank you very much.