Speaker: Katy, Practice Nurse - Little London Medical
Katy: Hi. My name is Katy Lond, and I am a practice nurse at Little London Medical. Now Practice Nurse. What does that mean? That you might ask. Well, I have had a few patients ask me rather facetiously, whether that means I am fully trained or whether I am still practising. Well, the answer to that is yes. To both, fully trained 20 years ago now, but still practising and learning every day. Practice nursing involves a wide range of skills and knowledge. We, are a General Practice. So we look after every medical condition out there. We do a lot of acute and, management of care of patients after the fact. But our main goal is that preventative health care and we spend a lot of time on preventative healthcare looking at, for example, diabetes management and keeping our patients well. Also, learning and expanding our knowledge to have the best outcomes the best access for our patients and to give them the best outcome for their health. Overall, based on that as a partnership with the patient
How does Little London show love to others?
Katy: So at Little London Medical, here we are a very close knit little team. We work well together. I absolutely love working here. It's a fantastic workplace. It's just awesome. Love the colleagues that we have, love our patients. Now we're very welcoming when patients come in the door and I feel as a team we push to get the best care for our patients possible. It is said that we go above and beyond. However, I don't feel that that is above and beyond. I don't think the bare minimum is actually good enough for patient care. And I will always do more than the standard and bare minimum to get the best result for that patient to the point that one patient in particular laughingly told me that we harass them. But they love it because they don't get the stuff done in their busy lifestyle without those constant reminders.
How do you personally show love to others in your role?
Katy: So here at Little London Medical like I said before, we are a very close knit little team. I do believe that work-life balance is really important, and part of that is being friends with your colleagues. In that respect, we do spend time together outside of work, try not to discuss work but actually enjoying each other's company. We check in on each other outside of work hours. And if anything needs doing, we are all very quick to offer and support if anyone's unwell. Any family members are unwell, if any anyone needs anything doing extra at home that they don't have the equipment for or the capability or the support, we are always there to support as needed.
Where have you seen transformation taking place?
Katy: So for someone whose life has been transformed through our workplace, well, there are just so many stories that we have that I could tell. I'm just going to talk about in general, some of the patients that have diabetes that I work with. What is absolutely fantastic is when they've been struggling and finally after spending significant amounts of time with them, which oh, thank goodness I'm really, really grateful to have the funding that we have to support diabetes where patients don't need to pay to come to see the nurse for diabetes management, and when finally that light bulb moment goes off and they just get it and you see their blood sugars come down, you see the HBA1C which is the three monthly blood test to manage that come down and you see them starting to... making some better food choices and better lifestyle choices, and they're excited about it. And realistically, there are even patients that bring their favourite recipes in for me, and we've swapped recipes, and it's just having that rapport and having that connection that is just so exciting and so, so many patients, not just diabetes, but so many different areas. We've got our child health where we do our child health checks and just being able to support families through that help new mums out. It's just awesome.
When do you smile and know God is at work?
Katy: So those God moments where I've gone, Yes, this is why I do what I do, "Thank you Lord", I have those moments every day. We see so many heartbroken patients. We see so many people coming in and with acute conditions in crisis, seeing the help and support we can refer them on to, or actually give them some support. Sometimes it is just sitting there and listening. And that is all that they need and and being able to allow that time for them to be able to do that for them instead of rush, rush, rush, "this is your appointment you've got to leave now"... We can even book them to come back if need be. Having that access to funding that can support that, because, let's face it, the access and finances for people in New Zealand at the moment is and can be really rough for a lot of people. But also seeing the families that are doing well and giving them that support. Little bits of advice, doing the healthy checks on the well child checks, doing the four year old checks, which is a which is a healthy preschool check, which is fantastic, bringing kids in when they're healthy. And just seeing people through the lifespan, learning more about different types of health and well being, and learning from my patients every day. Because, hey, let's face it, we've all got lots to learn from others. But yeah, God, moments every single day. It's just just fantastic, hearing feedback through the community about someone who has who has done well and given good feedback as well.
