UK breast care nurse now calls Australia home
Date Updated:
Karen Miles
Karen Miles knows she is making a difference in the rural Queensland city of Ipswich.
The former United Kingdom nurse moved from her home on the outskirts of London five years ago and is now working as a McGrath breast care nurse with Breast Screen Queensland Ipswich Service.
“In this role we are privileged to really get to know some amazing ladies and their partners,” she said.
“I was asked by The McGrath Foundation to do an interview for the Today program and one of my younger ladies agreed to be interviewed with me.
“She was asked how I helped her and she said ‘the doctors took care of my breast cancer and Karen took care of me’, and that four years down the line she still has my number on speed dial.
“What a fantastic job I have.”
Karen worked in general medicine, neurosurgery, general surgery and breast/gynaecological surgery before being appointed as a clinical nurse specialist for breast cancer in a close multi-disciplinary team in the south east district of the United Kingdom.
Karen said her family’s decision to move to Australia was “challenging” but was also the best decision they had ever made.
“I had lived in the same area all of my life and to move to the other side of the world was frightening but exciting,” she said.
“We are proud Australian citizens now - just with a funny accent!”
Now living and working in Queensland’s oldest provincial city, with a population of 155,000 people, Karen said the biggest challenge was access to services despite the city’s 300-bed public hospital offering breast surgery and oncology facilities.
“We now have all the facilities for breast cancer care apart from radiotherapy,” she said.
“If ladies are having chemo in the city they face a long time travelling home when they may be feeling unwell or nauseous.
"We are now actively encouraging women to have their surgery or treatment closer to home at Ipswich hospital rather than travelling into Brisbane.”
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