Coming from a nursing family, Aura felt that nursing was a very noble profession, so it was a natural progression for her to enter nursing. She thought of nursing as solely a profession where you help others heal and her first impression was that nurses are there to help others get better.

However, Aura feels that in aged care, it’s so much more than that. Part of it is to make sure that lives of other people like the elderly can be enriched and their lives improved by providing them better service and quality care. She said, “There is a connotation in aged care, that you didn’t choose to be there, but now I know why I’m here. It may not have started that way, but now I know why I stayed, and I love making sure that this vulnerable group of people in our community are well looked after”.

After gaining her Bachelor of Nursing in the Philippines, Aura then emigrated to Adelaide, undertaking a conversion course at Flinders University. She was then thrilled to enroll in our Graduate Program at Estia Health Wattle Glen in Victoria, but this meant moving from Adelaide. This was a difficult move for Aura, as she had no family here in Australia and had only just made friends in Adelaide. Determined to succeed, she moved to Melbourne and began learning all about aged care and quickly realised that to be a great nurse in the field, you also need to be a great leader.

After working as an RN at Wattle Glen until the end of 2021, Aura was offered the Acting Clinical Director role. At first, she was hesitant, not confident that she understood the role sufficiently. But she surprised herself and by the time the three-month period had ended, the home had passed accreditation with a perfect score. That gave both her and her Executive Director the confidence that she was absolutely able to take on the role permanently. Now Aura is enrolled in our Emerging Leaders

Program. “I want to be a great Clinical Director and for the residents and staff to have a very positive experience. I have a lot to learn and I look forward to being the best Clinical Director that I can be for the benefit of myself and our residents. After that, I would like to grow into a Quality or Executive Director role, when I am ready. Estia Health has been very generous in making sure I am well looked after and helped me grow into the leader I am now. Through the nursing grad program and the Emerging Leaders Program there’s always support from the Quality Business Partners with any clinical questions and management questions, and I can always go to my Executive Director.”

Moving to another country, making friends and starting a new job is not easy, but Aura has certainly blossomed here at Estia Health. She summed it up so well. “I feel like I have grown where I was planted. I want to stay with Estia Health, I feel like part of the family”.

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