Undergraduate nursing students training in one of ECU's simulation wards.
We're willing to bet you haven't heard of too many nurses who are also filmmakers.
Helen Hanson-Searle is not only a registered nurse; she’s an actor, writer, director and sometimes an opera singer!
So when the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts and the School of Nursing and Midwifery at ECU were looking for artistic works to celebrate the 2020 International Year of the Nurse and Midwife, who better to answer the call?
Helen was awarded a grant to create a short film that celebrated the nursing profession. That film was called Shift.
The idea behind the film
Shift work is something nurses accept as part of their role. According to Helen, the genesis of the idea came from a conversation with a colleague.
"I was talking to a nurse at work, and she talked to me about travelling home at the end of the day, and a young woman started speaking to her who was intellectually challenged. And she just thought afterwards how much joy she brought to the train."
Helen had also experienced these conversations with complete strangers on trains and buses at the end of a shift.
"They just come up if they recognise you in uniform, they'll just start chatting with you. So I thought there's a lovely opportunity for a story there," she says.
Helen plays the lead character of the nurse in the film which helps give some representation to nurses in the media outside of the traditional hospital drama.
It shows a nurse as a real person as well as the effect nurses have on the community outside of a medical setting.
You can watch Helen's 7-minute film here.
Quite a career change
Helen has worked as a registered nurse since 1984, in adult and paediatric nursing.
While she didn't study nursing at ECU – training was hospital-based back then – Helen did develop her range of creative skills at the university.
She trained as an actor at WAAPA in the early 90s, then studied scriptwriting at the WA Screen Academy at ECU, graduating in 2014.
Who says you can't change career at any time in your life? Or even have two careers running at the same time?
Helen sees a connection between her chosen careers and believes storytelling is a huge part of the nursing tradition.
"As an actor, we create freely. We have this wonderful opportunity to create characters and bring them to life. But also, as nurses we're engaging in stories every single day. We're hearing stories, really tough stories all the time," says Helen.
"Storytelling has been a big part of our community for generations. It's a tool that we've been using for thousands of years to heal communities and to heal the spirit."
Is nursing for you?
If Helen's story – or the film – has inspired you to think about nursing, you could start by exploring nursing courses at ECU.
