Director of Nursing / Midwifery
What the work is
Plans, organises, directs, controls and coordinates nursing/midwifery programs and clinical services in a hospital or other health service facility.
Would you enjoy the work?
These are the main tasks in the official description. Mark how each one sounds to you.
- Provides overall direction and management of nursing/midwifery programs and clinical services in a hospital or other health care facility
- Develops, implements and monitors procedures, policies and standards of nursing/midwifery care, and contributes to health service planning, ensuring compliance with relevant regulations
- Provides leadership, mentorship, guidance, education and training to nursing and midwifery staff to ensure an appropriately skilled workforce
- Collaborates with other Health Professionals to ensure coordinated and integrated patient care
- Participates in research and quality improvement activities to improve patient outcomes
- Recruits and rosters nursing/midwifery staff to meet the needs of the facility or unit
Try it
A simulation and a case study from this kind of work, set in a fictional residential aged care home with about sixty residents, run by a not-for-profit. They are fictional.
The kind of days you could have
Good days
- A resident who had stopped joining in laughs her way through the garden afternoon
- A family writes to say their father was treated like a person and not a patient
- Your care team handles a hard week calmly, and you can tell they trust one another
Hard days
- A family who loves their mother, disagrees with your team and is not wrong about everything
- Funding that does not stretch as far as the care your residents deserve
- A review of the home where every small gap gets written down
Written by Career Calling as a general guide. Real roles vary by employer and place.
Work a mission
Step into a simulated workplace in this field, with a brief from your manager.
Description and tasks: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Occupation Standard Classification for Australia, 2024, Version 1.0 (opens another site), occupation 141332, used under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. The skill guide above is our plain English summary.