Nursing jobs for you and your future

Experienced operating theatre nurse Brenden Cooke is now at Gympie TAFE.

Renee Pilcher

GYMPIE TAFE's Diploma of Nursing course is celebrating its first birthday after being introduced for the first time in 2011.

And the course already is aiming to secure real jobs for its graduates, with training from instructors well qualified theoretically and in the field.

Brenden Cooke has joined the team at Gympie TAFE, after having been a registered nurse working in operating theatres at Nambour Hospital until recently.

The latest course begins on Monday and anyone interested should phone 1300 656 188 to find out more so they can enrol by the end of this week.

Mr Cooke is one of three nursing teachers at the Wide Bay TAFE's Gympie campus.

And with a fully equipped replica hospital ward for a classroom, there could be few better places to learn the vital healing skills which keep hospitals going and their patients on the road to recovery.

With real hospital beds (peopled with specially designed practice dummies) and real equipment, the course is a practical hands-on experience aimed at training people and ensuring they can get jobs at the end of it.

Mr Cooke's fellow nursing teacher Rose Ann Winnett said: "The TAFE Diploma of Nursing is a qualification in itself, allowing graduates to work as endorsed enrolled nurses."

Equally important for some students is that studies for the diploma can count towards university studies for a bachelor degree in nursing.

In the same way, only in reverse, partial completion of bachelor studies can provide students with skills that can count towards the TAFE diploma.

Ms Winnett said nursing was a field with many career opportunities and, at the moment, "more jobs than there are people to fill them".

The course involves 18 months full-time training, delivered during three semesters from now until September, 2013.

Mr Cooke urged would-be students to get onboard to start on Monday.