Natasha Ferrer, a third-year nursing student at WSU, is on the final leg to becoming a qualified nurse. However, when first starting her degree, she realised there was no society for students in the Nursing and Midwifery industry. Sparking an idea, Natasha founds the first Nursing and Midwifery society at WSU, NaMSS (Nursing and Midwifery Students Society). Interviewed by W’SUP editor, Dania Roumieh, Natasha shares her story on her journey to establish this society, and why WSU students would benefit from joining.
Figure 1 – Natasha Ferrer
What inspired you to study nursing?
“I guess what inspired me is that when people go to the hospital, they’re in a very fragile state, a very vulnerable state where you could be embarrassed and ashamed of yourself. The nurses are right there at your call button if you’re ever in need of help. We’re there to support the person and make them feel confident in themselves to get better.…
Just being there for someone at a very vulnerable time and inspiring hope within their recovery journey, that’s something special. I would love to help people out in those dark times.”
Figure 2: Sara Shearman (Campbelltown Campus Representative), Jonathan Espinas (General Secretary)
Figure 3: International Nurses Day Campbelltown Pizza Night interactive poster
What challenges do you face as a nursing student working in the industry?
“To be completely honest with you, as a nursing student, we are expected to do 800 hours of unpaid clinical placements. It ranges from one week to even four weeks from Monday to Friday, eight hours every day. I find that personally very challenging because sometimes it drains my emotional and physical energy. If you’re there from Monday to Friday and especially if it’s not paid too, you’d have to sacrifice work or push yourself to work afterwards if you need to financially to support yourself and/or family. Depending on where you’re placed, there’s a lot of manual handling, a lot of critical thinking and communication to your team and interdisciplinary teams. For many of students, placement tends to burn us out, but it also helps us develop the essential critical thinking and skills we would need to become a nurse.”
What inspired you found the WSU Nursing and Midwifery Society?
“So initially when I started out, I was very keen to join the nursing society. But when I found out that there wasn’t one, I took it upon myself to actually create it. I understood that there was a need in the student community for an academic, social and advocation platform. I just wanted to help out in any way I could.”
Figure 4: Hannah Chauhan first-year representative and winner of the international nurses day competition
How does this society provide the student body with a voice?
“If we grow our society more and if we develop a relationship with our school, the school of nursing and midwifery, I think that the potential is amazing. If we established this relationship, students could potentially have more of a say and more support and knowledge of what happens in their academic life. By consulting and engaging with our society with academic matters, the school of nursing and midwifery can ensure an increase of student performance and satisfaction on their academic journey. I extremely hope they recognise us soon so we can start collaborating on an academic and social manner.”
How do you plan on extending the relationship between nursing students and the wider nursing community?
“The society is more of an internal, school-based society. The outer community is welcome to participate and learn about our society. Like other courses for example, they are welcome to join and see what we do, however, it is mainly focused on schoolwork. Our society aims to support the students academically, socially and to advocate for their needs. It would be more catered towards nursing and midwifery university students.”
Natasha’s message to Nursing and Midwifery Students:
“In our NaMSS (Nursing and Midwifery Students Society) team, we focus on three main components: social, academic and advocation.
If you’d like to join our society, or reach out to us, you’ll be benefited in so many ways, and we can support you with any of those components”
Team members:
President: Natasha Ferrer
General Secretary: Jonathan Espinas
Treasurer: Fritz Mendoza
Academic Director: Montana Habib
Social Director: Alyssa-Marie Mawad
Online Domain President: Katrina Wirth
Campbelltown Campus President: Sarah Shearman
Parramatta South Campus President: Loore Muravu
Hawkesbury Campus President: Aan Anusaan
Year Director: Gillian Venditti
Year Representative Parramatta South Campus: Aditi Bhanot
Year Representative Campbelltown Campus: Revelyn Naidu
