Completing a Regional Enrolled Nursing Cadetship has put Denny Penney on the path to a career that she once thought was out of reach.
The cadetship, which combines study at TAFE SA with a paid part-time work placement leading to a Diploma of Nursing, enabled her to juggle family commitments while building her skills and knowledge in health care.
While living on Yorke Peninsula, Denny was studying a Certificate III in Disability Support at TAFE SA when her lecturer suggested she apply for the nursing cadetship offered by SA Health.
Denny, a mother of two young children with a husband working in a FIFO role, doubted she had the ability or the time to commit to nursing, but agreed to apply for the cadetship and was thrilled to be accepted.
Over 18 months, she studied at TAFE SA’s Port Pirie Campus and was employed two days a week as an Assistant in Nursing at Wallaroo hospital with the hours counting as her course work placement.
Through the process, the proud Ngarrindjeri woman developed skills, gained confidence in her ability and discovered a real passion for nursing.
“The cadetship was the best thing. By combining study and the work placement, you can practise your skills straight away and that really helped me with the learning,” Denny says.
“I loved the training at TAFE SA’s Port Pirie Campus because it was a small class with lots of one-on-one practical learning and we could ask more questions without feeling it was a ‘stupid question’.
“The new skills lab for practical training was amazing and the lecturers would spend extra time to ensure we understood the task.”
Denny also appreciated the chance to gain on-the-job experience at Wallaroo Hospital, working across different areas and interacting with patients and their families.
“Until I started, I didn’t understand the complexity of a hospital and the different levels of care that are provided,” she says.
“I like acute care because you can see a patient through from start to finish and it’s good to see that people can get better and walk out again.”
Denny strives to offer a high level of care and compassion to family members and aims to ensure they receive the communication they need.
“It’s important to treat someone the way you would want your family member treated,” she says.
As a proud Ngarrindjeri woman with roots in Murray Bridge, Tailem Bend and Meningie, Denny hopes her experience will inspire others to pursue their career ambitions.
“With this new pathway I hope to encourage others to believe in themselves, that they can further their education and find a pathway to their dream career,” she says.
Denny, who now lives with her family in Mt Pleasant, has been putting her nursing training to use caring for her mum who recently experienced a life-threatening infection and spent more than a month in hospital.
Denny wants to build on her experience with some casual shifts in the local area and hopes to one day further her career as a registered nurse.
“I’d like to work in remote areas and go into small communities, something like the RFDS would be great,” she says.