This award recognises an early career Registered Nurse or Midwife or Enrolled Nurse who demonstrates ongoing commitment to their own and others' professional development, commitment to improving patient, resident, client, woman or community outcomes and evidence of outcomes through one or more of the six Positive Practice Envionment Standards (PPES).
Click here to read the full Positive Practice Environment Standards
Entrants or nominees must respond to the following questions:
- Address at least one of the six Positive Practice Environment Standards, clearly specifying the standard you are addressing and why you chose it / them (max. 250 words)
- Provide evidence of how the Positive Practice Environment Standard/s is demonstrated and embedded by you in your workplace (max. 250 words).
Entry requisites for this award:
- Less than 3 years postgraduate employment as a Registered Nurse or Midwife or Enrolled Nurse
- Must be a registrant of Ahpra
- Must not have previously won this award
- Must be a current financial QNMU member and membership must have been held for minimum 12 months prior to application
- Cannot be an employed QNMU staff member or Councillor in the previous 12 months prior to date applications open
- Cannot be a first-degree relative of a QNMU staff member or Councillor
- Finalists must commit to attending the QNMU Nursing and Midwifery Excellence Awards ceremony in Brisbane on Thursday 25 July 2024 (funded by QNMU)
- Finalists must commit to participating in QNMU marketing or communications for the awards eg photo shoots, testimonials etc
- Winners must commit to providing written feedback to the QNMU council within three months of receiving their prize on how it was spent towards professional or personal development.
Example: 2022 Winner, Genevieve See
PPES chosen: Standard 6 = Transformational leadership
Genevieve is a Registered Nurse at the Sunshine Coast University Hospital. Throughout her graduate year, Genevieve noticed that there was an opportunity to provide graduates with access to all required resources and information in a one stop shop booklet that could be given to graduates and new employees to help better prepare them for the workplace. Her goal for this booklet was to lay solid foundations for new graduates to ease anxiety in the first few months of starting their new job, especially with the reduced ability for a face-to-face training during the pandemic.
The booklet would outline available learning opportunities, provide key contact details, and set clear expectations around the role of the Registered Nurse, with an emphasis on patient centred care.
To action this initiative, Genevieve met with the Graduate Coordinator, who supported her idea. However, Genevieve soon discovered that such a booklet already existed – although some graduates, including herself, never received a copy and almost all surveyed graduates wanted the current booklet to be updated to include all tools and resources required.
Throughout this project, Genevieve met with Clinical Coaches, Nurse Unit Managers, Nurse Educators, fellow graduates, After Hours Nurse Managers, Acute Care Clinical Nurse Consultants, and other colleagues. All were very supportive of Genevieve’s idea and provided valuable feedback around what to include.
Genevieve’s booklet was ultimately developed and provided to all 2022 nursing graduates. She hopes her project inspires other new graduates to think big when it comes to leading innovation and change in the workplace – no matter how simple their idea might be.