Nicholas ensures his practice supports junior nurses and students through education and demonstration of critical tasks, allowing a positive practice environment, improvement of their confidence and practice autonomy.
Nicholas encourages all nurses around him to advocate for staff and patient safety. He fosters new staff with one-on-one education and ensures the good that they do is acknowledged. He allows for their insight to be voiced from the bedside and escalated to management. He enables new nurses joining the team to be confident, competent and autonomous. Nicholas leads by example, using their incident/hazard reporting system advocating for a safe and robust work environment. He ensures safe staff ratios are adequate and that his patients have a safe environment to be treated in. Nicholas also ensures all his patients are educated on Ryan’s Rule.
His colleagues describe him as patient, exceptionally knowledgeable, supportive and inspiring, and an exemplary stand-out in driving capability and competence to their unit. Nicholas lives by the values of the workplace, and ensures thorough, thoughtful clinical practice is consistently maintained.
"I explain to my new grads that nursing care is 24 hours, and if you have an absolutely rubbish shift and there are things aren’t done - the next shift can always pick things up. I was blessed as a nursing student, my RN buddy let me take over four patients. I always say to my students ‘Take this opportunity, you’re in your last year, I’m going to take a step back, you’re going to do the lead’.”