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Thi Nguyen – 2019 Clinical Excellence Award Winner
Thi Nguyen, Nurse Unit Manager Ward 4, won the ‘2019 Clinical Excellence Award’ at this year’s Northern Health Annual Meeting. This annual award came after her winning the ‘Above and Beyond’ at the Staff Recognition Awards in July this year.
She was nominated by Sue Pike, Operations Director Medicine, who said Ward 4 is a medical ward with a complex patient cohort, including patients with behavioural challenges due to dementia, mental health diagnoses and younger patients with autism and intellectual disabilities.
“At all times, Thi strives to ensure that her patients and their families are supported during admission. Recently, the team had several incidents impacting staff and the relatives of a patient. Thi made sure she took the time to provide individual support to each impacted staff member, with staff mentioning how supported they felt by Thi. She needs to be recognised for going above and beyond in providing care and support to all patients and their families and to her team/colleagues,” Sue said.
Thi started her career at Northern Health eight years ago as a graduate nurse.
“I was lucky enough to rotate through multiple specialty areas as a graduate and had the chance to work with many inspiring clinicians. I then re-joined Unit B (now known as Ward 4) as a registered nurse and was fortunate enough to progress to ANUM & NUM roles, which have all been very rewarding,” she said.
Thi enjoys caring for the geriatric cohort of patients on Ward 4 and feels she currently has the best of both worlds.
“I get to practice as a renal nurse and work with our elderly population in the northern suburbs,” she said.
“The Nurse Unit Manager (NUM) role has been both very challenging and rewarding in so many ways. My day consists of juggling my time to ensure that both staff and patients feel supported and heard; along with ensuring that there is safe, quality and high standards of care on Ward 4,” she added.
Thi truly enjoys the team work aspect of her job, knowing that all the pieces of work, put together helped in the patient’s recovery journey. She feels blessed to have a team that not only supports her, but also shares a common goal and have created such a positive culture.
Thi is modest when she talks about the award and what it means to her.
“I can’t take credit for this award, I’m still not sure I deserve it. Truly, the credit and recognition should go to my team and the wonderful people I meet at Northern Health every day. I feel very proud and humble at the same time to know that my peers have nominated me for this award. It has also inspired me to continue following my passion to create positive change in nursing and to continue connecting with people on a bigger scale,” Thi added.
In the future, Thi hopes to be still working and contributing to Northern Health and the northern community, knowing that her work has helped someone in some way.
“I hope to be a manager that could inspire and foster new nurses into strong leaders and strive to make changes and contribute to the nursing profession in a positive way. I’ve been very fortunate to have amazing mentors and managers, so I’d like to be able to provide similar guidance and motivation to others,” she said.
“Northern Health is a progressive organisation and the opportunities are endless,” she added.
See the video below to hear what colleagues say about Thi and why they nominated her:
Featured image (left to right): Tim Bond, Maxxia; Jennifer Williams, Northern Health Board Chair; Thi Nguyen; Daniella Ghiri, Maxxia.