I’m a registered nurse, working in cardiothoracics at Royal Melbourne Hospital. I was made redundant from my previous job as an environmental engineer in about 2014, and have been at Royal Melbourne since 2019, when I did my graduate year of nursing training.

I categorically love my job. It’s incredible – cardiothoracics suits my technical brain. I also love the difference you can make in a person’s life – you can often send them home better than they were than they arrived. And sometimes just the smallest thing can make such an impact on a patient’s day. We had a man in not that long ago who was about six foot seven, and too tall for the bed. I took the end of his bed off and put in an extra little piece of foam. The smile on his face and the difference that tiny, tiny thing made to him – that makes me feel so good. When I was an engineer, though, I was kind of like this tiny cog in a big machine.

The sorts of patients we deal with have had cardiac bypass surgery, or heart valve replacement or repair, and in thoracics, which is to do with the lungs, there’s anything from surgery for tumours to caring for someone who has fallen off a ladder and punctured their lung. I’m a nerd, and had spent some time in the environmental engineering department of Melbourne Uni at the end of year 10 and 11. At the end of year 12, I’d wanted to be a doctor but missed out – I’d really loved the engineering, so thought, “You know what, I think I might just go and do that.”

I spent 15 years as an environmental consultant for a couple of different organisations and five years in construction. In consulting, the sorts of things we’d do were air quality modelling for the CityLink tunnels. After a while, I decided that instead of just writing reports, which is what a lot of the stuff we did was, I wanted to do something where I might have made more of an impact. I worked for a large construction company, managing their regional environment team of about 40 engineers across three states, but then got headhunted by a smaller company, which is where I was made redundant from.

I looked forward to going to work as an engineer – the jobs were really interesting and the people I worked with were phenomenal. It’s always about the people. The worst part was probably the hours – I’d be doing 60- or 70-hour weeks. When I lost my job, I sat and watched Game of Thrones back-to-back seasons one to five once my three children went off to school. It was the first time I’d been able to do something like that, but I also thought, “Oh my god, we’re going to have to sell the house.”

After a couple of weeks, I realised I didn’t want to go back to engineering, so started talking to a few people about what else I could do. I could have taught, but the DipEd course didn’t start until the following year, and I couldn’t sit around for nine months. My mother-in-law volunteered at an aged care facility near me, so I went and chatted with the CEO, and ended up doing a certificate course in aged care and home-based care, which was six weeks’ worth of classes in the local pub. I organised placements in the aged care facility and also a small local hospital, and eventually became a registered nurse. It was hard going back to study as I’d essentially been the person other people had come to to solve problems. I just had to accept that I was no longer top of my field, but knew there was always the opportunity to be back there if I worked really hard.

At the same time I started nursing, my father-in-law got very sick and my dad had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s a while before. I was able to be around and support them both, as well as my mum, which was good.

One of the best things about my job now, apart from caring for people, is the shift work. I love the fact that I get random days off in the middle of the week; I even don’t mind the night shift, which sounds very strange. I like the variation – each shift  is quite different.

Sometimes I say I should have done this 20 years ago, but I wouldn’t be the nurse that I am today. My three daughters have seen me change careers. They understand that what they decide to do today is not necessarily what they have to do for the rest of their lives, and that’s a good thing to know.

LISA'S ADVICE
Go for it. If it’s something you love and are passionate about, just take the leap. It’s better not to think too much about it – if I had, I’d probably have gone straight back to engineering to find a salary that would support us. I didn’t realise how unhappy I’d been in my work life until I’d made the change.

This story was originally published in frankie feel-good volume 2.