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Why theatre nurses leave, and why pay is not the whole story
We asked theatre and perioperative staff across Australia and New Zealand why they left their last role. Pay was not near the top.

Kate Wheeler
21 minutes ago


Statements of service for nurses moving to Australia: how far back do you go?
How far back do your statements of service need to go when moving to Australia as a nurse? It depends on whether they are for AHPRA registration, an ANMAC skills assessment or your pay level.

Paul Wheeler
6 hours ago


The Endoscopy Nurse Role Explained, and How Theatre Nurses Move Into It
What an endoscopy nurse does day to day, what hospitals look for when they hire, and how theatre nurses move across into endoscopy.

Kate Wheeler
6 hours ago


Salary Packaging for Nurses: What Theatre Nurses Need to Know
Salary packaging for nurses comes up constantly in conversations with theatre nurses weighing up a move, and it is still one of the most misunderstood parts of a job offer. Get it right and it can genuinely change your take-home pay. Overlook it, or simply not ask about it, and you may end up comparing two roles on headline salary alone when the real difference sits somewhere else entirely. This is general information, not financial advice, and every employer's scheme is diff

Kate Wheeler
1 day ago


The Nurses Who Came Before Us: Allen Allensworth
From a Civil War hospital corps aide to the highest-ranking African American officer in the US Army of his era, Allen Allensworth went on to found California's only African American-governed town. Part of Carejobz's Nurses Who Came Before Us series.

Kate Wheeler
3 days ago


Theatre Careers Bulletin: Theatre Nurse Jobs in Australia This Week
This week's Theatre Careers Bulletin sets out where live, advertised theatre nurse jobs in Australia sit by state and specialty, from scrub scout to CSSD and leadership roles.

Kate Wheeler
3 days ago


What the Current Scrub Scout and Anaesthetic Nurse Vacancies Are Telling Us
Every week I look at the live scrub scout and anaesthetic nurse vacancies coming across my desk, and this week is worth talking about. Right now there are genuinely live, currently advertised scrub scout and anaesthetic nurse vacancies open across Queensland, New South Wales, Tasmania, Western Australia and South Australia, all at the same time. That spread tells you something about where perioperative nursing sits in the market today, and it is worth unpacking what it actual

Kate Wheeler
Sep 17


The PACU and Recovery Nurse Role Explained, and Where It Sits in Theatre Careers
The PACU and recovery nurse role is one of the most consistently advertised positions in perioperative nursing across Australia and New Zealand, yet it is often reduced to a single line on a position description: post-anaesthesia care. In practice the role carries its own skill set, its own pace and a genuine case for a career specialty in its own right, rather than a stop on the way to theatre. This bulletin sets out what the role actually involves, how it differs from ward-

Kate Wheeler
Sep 16


Starting a New Perioperative Role: Why the Nerves Never Fully Go Away
Kate on why the nerves of starting a new perioperative role never fully disappear, and what actually helps in the first few months.

Kate Wheeler
Sep 15


Ākenehi Hei - The first nurse to register in Aotearoa under her own Māori name — and the first Māori nurse we know of to hold a theatre post.
She qualified in June 1908 and was handed the operating theatre at Napier Hospital within months. She left it for a tent on a paddock, because that was where her people were dying of typhoid.

Kate Wheeler
Sep 15


Alicia Mary Kelly: The Nurse Awarded the Military Medal for Courage Under Fire
The verified story of Sister Alicia Mary Kelly, an Australian Army nurse awarded the Military Medal in 1917 for staying with her patients during sustained shelling at a Casualty Clearing Station.

Kate Wheeler
Sep 12


Moving Into an ANUM or Clinical Nurse Manager Role in Perioperative Nursing
Two of the clearest promotion pathways in perioperative nursing right now are the Associate Nurse Unit Manager (ANUM) role and the Clinical Nurse Manager role in theatres. Both sit above the scrub scout nurse and anaesthetic nurse levels, and both are currently open across Australian private hospitals, but the two roles are not the same job with a different title. Understanding what each one actually involves is the first step if you are considering the move from clinical the

Kate Wheeler
Sep 12


Mary Adelaide Nutting: The Nurse Who Built the World's First University Chair in Nursing
Mary Adelaide Nutting built the structured, graded nurse training that every hospital specialty, including perioperative nursing, grew out of, and became the world's first professor of nursing in 1907.

Kate Wheeler
Sep 8


The Question Worth Asking Before You Resign From a Theatre Job
Most theatre nurses do not resign from a theatre job over one bad day. By the time the resignation letter gets written, the decision has usually been building for months. The reason given at an exit interview is not always the reason underneath it. Before you resign from a theatre job, there is one question worth asking yourself honestly, because the answer changes what you should do next. The question I ask first When a theatre nurse tells me they are ready to resign, I ask

Kate Wheeler
Sep 8


Ann Stokes: The Nurse Who Served Aboard America’s First Naval Hospital Ship
Ann Stokes entered the United States Navy record during the Civil War as a Black woman who had escaped slavery. She served as a nurse aboard USS Red Rover, the Union Navy hospital ship on the Mississippi, decades before the Navy Nurse Corps formally existed.

Kate Wheeler
Sep 8


What Does a Scrub and Scout Nurse in Australia Actually Do?
If you are considering a move into theatre nursing, or you are early in your perioperative career and still finding your feet, here is a straightforward look at what the scrub and scout roles actually involve day to day.

Kate Wheeler
Sep 2


Hester Maclean: The Nurse Who Gave New Zealand Nursing a National Voice
Hester Maclean helped turn nursing in New Zealand from a collection of local practices into a profession with national standards, a professional journal, military nursing leadership and a stronger public voice.

Kate Wheeler
Sep 1


Nellie Gould: The Matron Who Helped Establish Australian Military Nursing
Before Australia was a federation, Ellen Julia “Nellie” Gould was already helping build an organised military nursing service. She selected nurses for South Africa, led them through the Boer War and later returned to service during the First World War.

Kate Wheeler
Aug 25


The Counter Offer Conversation, and the Questions Worth Asking First
A counter offer arrives at the worst possible moment. You have already made the decision, already had the difficult conversation, and then your manager asks for a day to see what they can do. This is one of the most common things theatre nurses ring me about, and it is worth thinking through calmly rather than in the corridor between cases. I am not going to tell you never to accept one. Sometimes a counter offer is the right answer. But it deserves the same scrutiny you woul

Kate Wheeler
Aug 20


The Anaesthetic Nurse Role Explained, and How Theatre Nurses Move Into It
The anaesthetic nurse role is one of the clearest specialist routes in perioperative nursing, and one of the least well explained. Most theatre nurses first meet it from the other side of the drape, as the person who has already settled the patient by the time the scrub team is gowned. This bulletin sets out what the anaesthetic nurse role actually involves, what hospitals across Australia and New Zealand ask for, and how scrub scout nurses move across. What the role covers A

Kate Wheeler
Aug 20
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