Perioperative Career and Recruitment Insights

Alice Ross-King was a theatre sister before she was anything else. By 1914 she was in charge of a private hospital in Melbourne, having trained at the Alfred Hospital and worked as a ward sister, night superintendent and acting matron. Four years later she was one of the first Australian nurses to be awarded the Military Medal, for what she did in a canvas ward that had just been bombed. Every fact below is drawn from her service record, her diaries and the official record. B

Choosing your referees is usually the last thing a theatre nurse thinks about and one of the first things an employer acts on. Most people give it about ninety seconds, name whoever they reported to most recently, and move on. Then a reference comes back flat, or late, or from someone who genuinely could not remember which lists they scrubbed on, and a strong application quietly loses its momentum. It is worth more than ninety seconds. Here is how I would go about it. A refer

A state-by-state look at the genuinely live perioperative vacancies across Australia and New Zealand, from anaesthetic nursing to cardiac electrophysiology, cath lab and scrub and scout roles.

A closer look at the perioperative nurse educator role in private hospital theatres, what it actually involves day to day, and who it tends to suit.

Why measuring your theatre career against a colleague's timeline rarely gives you an honest picture, and what to pay attention to instead.

Loyalty to a hospital is a good instinct when it is returned. Here is how to tell when it has become the only reason you are still there.

Vivian Bullwinkel was the sole surviving nurse of the Bangka Island Massacre. This is her verified story, from Singapore in 1941 to a lifetime of nursing leadership.

Being dependable is a strength, but perioperative professionals should not have to carry every extra shift, difficult list or staffing gap alone.

Clinical ability matters, but communication, adaptability, professional judgement and a willingness to keep learning can shape a stronger perioperative career.