Amy Meskin

My parents immigrated to Australia from South Africa in the 1990s and I was born and raised in Sydney. After graduating from high school in 2014, I completed a Bachelor of Occupational Therapy. However, it was during this time that I discovered I had a real passion for patient care, so I enrolled in the Bachelor of Nursing at UTS. 

Nursing is a highly rewarding profession as you can uniquely support individuals and their families through a vulnerable and challenging period. Nursing has a wide scope of practice, which means it is possible to develop a broad range of skills as well as specialise in a particular area.

I chose to study at UTS because it is recognised as a leading university in nursing research and education. The course at UTS provides a high-level foundation of nursing knowledge, while simultaneously focusing on developing practical skills through clinical placements and classroom-based simulations. The tutors maintain current clinical experience, which makes them relatable and approachable.  

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of the nursing profession and made my degree even more rewarding. While it was a challenging to begin studying during 2020 due to the uncertainties of the pandemic and the transition to online learning, it also demonstrated the value of nursing and the role we could play. Clinical placements have provided with me the opportunity to develop skills, while simultaneously enabling me to support patients during a vulnerable time in their lives.  

My advice to anyone who is considering studying nursing would be to embrace the clinical placement opportunities and remain open-minded. At the beginning of the degree, I thought I would end up working in a paediatric setting and did not consider the possibility of working in the theatre environment. I decided to choose the perioperative elective and only through this did I find my passion for working in anaesthetics. 

I now work as an anaesthetic nurse at Prince of Wales Hospital. I am hoping to return to UTS in the future to study a postgraduate course in this area to further develop my knowledge. Outside of my work in the health sector, I am also passionate about volunteering and maintaining an active lifestyle.