Scholarships allow nurses to dream big

However, a cohesive and comprehensive pathway for nurses to develop in areas where there are not financial funding arrangements has been missing – until now.

As part of The Alfred’s commitment to support nursing education, training and opportunities to develop the nursing workforce, The Alfred Health Nurses Fund was launched in September 2024.

Its aim is to provide scholarships to nurses in clinical practice, research, informatics, education and management, while advancing nursing practice through clinical observations, research, education and leadership experiences to introduce new ideas and concepts to nursing at The Alfred.

Professor Ged Williams AO, Chief Nursing Officer at The Alfred, said it was exciting to identify people who have good learning or developmental opportunities that could benefit the organisation, and then be able to give them financial support to do that exercise.

Supported by a large number of enthusiastic and generous donors, the Fund is specifically for things that nurses have wanted to prioritise – the chance to extend their learning, visit global centres of excellence and then bring that knowledge and expertise back to their department and support their wellbeing at work.

“We have been able to engage our broader community within Melbourne and those people who have a stake in The Alfred, particularly those who have a passion for our nursing staff and what they can do,” Prof Williams said. “To be able to target their donations to nursing-specific activities through The Alfred Foundation is fantastic. It’s good for the donor – because it is going to their passion – but it is great for us as well because we can support more and more Alfred nurses to pursue their interests.”

Two nurses to receive the Advanced Nursing Leadership Scholarship in 2025 were Catherine Vassili and Rebecca Brough.

Catherine, an Acute Leukaemia Nurse Practitioner, will visit two services in the US which have geriatric services – City of Hope and the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

“It is an incredible opportunity,” she said. “I will be getting insights into the role of nurse practitioners providing geriatric oncology care, which has been identified as an area where we can build our repertoire at The Alfred. “I’m very grateful for all of the sponsors and The Alfred to support nurses in doing this and allowing us to go and expand our knowledge and experience and hopefully bring back things that can help transform care here at The Alfred.”

Rebecca, who has been at The Alfred since her graduate year in 2002, is the Associate Director Patient Feedback and Liaison. Working with patients, families and members of the community, she works to ensure feedback from their experiences is  heard, particularly to drive improvements in care and experience.

Identifying strengths and opportunities to improve communication with patients and families who have experienced an adverse event will be top of her agenda when she visits hospitals across Australia to see how they involve patients and families into adverse event reviews, as well as exploring how patient feedback is driving improvements.

“It is important because we know people’s experience of care is linked to better outcomes,” Rebecca said. “And I really believe that experience is as important as clinical effectiveness.

“I am very grateful to the donors because this sort of opportunity is very difficult to access, particularly in nursing. I’m really working hard to do the donors proud, and the organisation as well.”

Another recipient of a scholarship, Olivia Sonneborn, said it was great to see such a diverse range of “amazing projects” across the nursing cohort.

An Acute Pain Clinical Nurse Consultant, Olivia will investigate different management of patients with blunt chest wall injuries and rib fractures, specifically pain management, at hospitals across Australia and New Zealand.

“Pain management is a big part of the way to improve their recovery overall,” she said. “I will also be looking at their care guidelines and benchmarking for The Alfred, to see how we’re doing and if we can do better.”

Pamela Galindo has started her research project investigating what barriers there are to women participating in trials, specifically stroke trials, thanks to a scholarship. She has presented her findings to audiences across the Asia-Pacific region, and is now collaborating with stroke healthcare professionals in the UK to broaden the scope of her research. 

The Stroke Research Clinical Trial Manager said there was a lower percentage of women taking part in trials not just in Australia, but all over the world. 

“But if you look at the data, there’s a higher risk of women having a stroke, and they have poorer outcomes,” she said. “This under-representation constrains external validity and limits the applicability of trial to evidence to real-world women.”

These endeavours are all possible thanks to the support of our donors.

This story featured in the 2025 Impact magazine, which you can download and read here.