Welcome to Australasian Cardiovascular Nursing College

Ross is currently employed as the Cardiac Nurse Educator at the Prince of Wales Hospital, Sydney. Ross has more than  twenty years experience in cardiac nursing. This includes six years co-ordinating a post graduate cardiac nursing course at The College of Nursing.  Ross continues to lecture regularly at the college and also tutors for several post graduate subjects.  In addition to this Ross has provided consultation for several programs produced by the Aged Care Channel and frequently lectures for Ausmed Conferences.   Ross is an accredited Advanced Life Support instructor with the Australian Resuscitation Council.  Ross’ current professional representations include being a founding member and the President of the Australasian Cardiovascular Nursing College and NSW representative on the Cardiovascular Nursing Council of the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand (CSANZ).  Prior to this Ross was a past President of the Cardiac Nurses Network of Australia and New Zealand. Outside of work Ross’ major passion is motorcycle racing.

Andy is a New Zealand Registered Nurse Practitioner with prescribing rights.  He has extensive clinical experience in long term condition support and management, acute cardiology and adult cardiac surgery nursing.   Andy performs a range of cardiology nurse interventions in hospital and in the community. Andy is regularly invited to participate as a speaker and facilitator regarding many aspects of cardiology including the role of nurses in the management of those with long term cardiac and diabetic disease. Andy is passionate about the role nursing has in the best practice management of cardiac conditions and has contributed to public health initiatives.  Andy’s current interests are involved with nurse led initiatives in cardiovascular disease and encouraging nurses to use clinical audits to drive quality improvements in patient care.  He is also interested in trying to understand how to support patients to make sense of the information they are given and how best to motivate and/or support positive behaviour change for self management.

                                       Kimberley Bardsley

Kim is currently employed as the Heart Failure CNC in the multidisciplinary team of the St Vincent’s Hospital Heart Failure Service. She has previous extensive cardiothoracic nursing experience in coronary care, cardiothoracic wards and cardiothoracic intensive care units. Her employment history includes public and private hospitals mostly in Sydney and a year in Far North Queensland and loads of agency ICU work.  

Kim is now working towards gaining Nurse Practitioner Authorisation.  Among other qualifications she has a Masters in Cardiothoracic nursing and is completing pharmacology components of the NP course at the University of Technology Sydney.  Kim has a special interest in chronic and complex heart failure patients   Her recent research includes a case report of inhaled frusemide for breathlessness symptom relief.

Jackie Colgan hails from Birmingham, England, and qualified as a Registered General Nurse in 1991 at Dudley Road Hospital.  She migrated to Australia in 1993 and worked in Sydney before moving to Central Coast Health in 2001.  Jackie has worked in cardiology for several years in various roles including Clinical Nurse Educator and is currently Clinical Nurse Consultant Cardiac Services at Central Coast Local Health District.  

Jackie has a Graduate Certificate in Cardiac Nursing (NSW College of Nursing) and a Masters in Nursing (University of Technology Sydney).  Jackie’s special interest areas are patient safety including conscious sedation use in cardiology, clinical teaching and systems of care for acute coronary syndrome.

                     Professor Patricia Davidson:  Past President

Patricia is an RN, BA, MEd, PhD and is Director of the Centre for Cardiovascular and Chronic Care at University of Technology Sydney & Professor of Cardiovascular Research at St Vincent's Hospital Sydney. She has played an active role in developing and evaluating nurse coordinated models of heart failure care and tailored and targeted approaches to cardiac rehabilitation. She is President of the International Council on Women’s Health Issues and Secretary of the International Network for Doctoral Education in Nursing.  She is Chairperson of the Cardiovascular Nurses Working Group of the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand and immediate past president of the Australasian Cardiovascular Nurses College.  She is a Fellow of the Royal College of Nursing Australia, co-chair of the NSW Health Clinical Expert Reference Group for Cardiovascular Disease, and an Editor of Collegian. Her clinical and research specialty focuses on chronic cardiovascular disease, particularly heart failure, women’s health, Indigenous health, and novel interdisciplinary models of care development. 

                                               Natasha Eaton

RN, B.Nurs, Grad Cert Health Management. Natasha has worked as a Registered Nurse for 16 years, and began cardiovascular nursing 11 years ago.  Her cardiovascular nursing journey has taken her from cardiothoracic surgery to coronary care nursing, then on the pathway of clinical nurse teaching and education.  Natasha is currently working in the diverse role of Cardiac CNC in a general, non-interventional hospital, which keeps her occupied with clinical decision making, staff development and workforce management.  Natasha relishes the education aspect of the role which includes conducting ECG courses, cardiac nursing courses and ALS training and assessment.   Natasha has recently dabbled in some research looking at Type 2 MI’s or Troponin release without overt CAD and is looking forward to continuing this.  She aims to present and publish her findings.  Natasha is constantly challenged and amazed at the variety and depth of experience that cardiovascular nursing provides and looks forward to advances that research, technology and health reform bring. When she is not nursing Natasha enjoys her organic vegie garden, watching the simplistic life of her chickens, seeing live music and indulging in wine and cheese.  

                                                     Sally Inglis 

RN, BN, BHSc(Hons), PhD, NFESC.  Sally is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Cardiovascular and Chronic Care, Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery and Health at the University of Technology, Sydney.  Sally is a current NHMRC and Heart Foundation Sydney Sax Post-Doctoral Research Fellow.  As a registered nurse and cardiovascular nurse researcher Sally is aware of the important and diverse roles and the contributions nurses make in preventing and managing cardiovascular disease in clinical practice, research and policy.  As an ACNC committee member she is committed to the promotion of the nursing role in preventing and managing cardiovascular disease through research, health policy and clinical practice.  Sally has a PhD in Medical Sciences from the University of Queensland, a Bachelor of Health Sciences Honours degree from the University of Adelaide and a Bachelor of Nursing from the University of South Australia. She has worked in cardiac and coronary care units and undertaken research across a number of forms of chronic cardiovascular disease.  More recently her research has been focused on chronic heart failure and peripheral arterial disease and in particular nurse-management of chronic cardiovascular disease.  Sally has recently completed a large Cochrane review of telemonitoring and structured telephone support for patients with chronic heart failure.

                                       Gerry Lee:  Past Secretary

Gerry qualified as a registered nurse in 1990 and following this has been involved in cardiac nursing working in CCU and cardiac rehabilitation.  One of her roles was working on a neuroprotective study which sparked her interest in research.  Gerry undertook a quality of life study in patients five years following cardiac surgery. Gerry and her family moved from London to Melbourne in 2001 and for eight years she worked at LaTrobe University.  During that time Gerry developed a course in cardiac nursing and the Nurse Practitioner Masters program.  In order to gain more research experience, Gerry started work at the Baker IDI in Melbourne and worked around Victoria on screening for CHD and on a CHF prevention study.  Gerry is completing her PhD on the use of the ECG in detecting heart disease in resource poor settings (Soweto in South Africa and in the Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory). Gerry is currently employed between the Alfred Hospital in the Department of cardiothoracic surgery working on a neurocognitive project and for the Baker IDI in electrophysiology.  Gerry has written more than 40 papers and is on the editorial board of two nursing journals (International Emergency Nursing and Journal of Nursing and Healthcare of Chronic Illness).

                                Margaret Lucas:  Treasurer

Margaret is a Nurse Practitioner in the Advanced Heart Failure and Cardiac Transplant Unit at The Prince Charles Hospital in Brisbane.  Margaret began nursing in 1996 and has been a cardiac nurse for fifteen years.   She co-developed the initial Heart Failure service at The Prince Charles Hospital in 2002 and contributed to the development of state wide Heart Failure Services in Queensland.  Margaret has been Nurse Co-ordinator of the Advanced Heart Failure Unit at The Prince Charles Hospital since 2003. She was chosen to implement one of the Nurse Practitioner demonstration sites in Queensland for Heart Failure in 2004 and proceeded to complete a Masters in Nursing, Nurse Practitioner, in 2008.    Margaret has been a member of ACNC since its inception and has served as Treasurer since 2007.  In her NP role, Margaret is currently monitoring the use of Fish Oil supplements in heart failure patients and the usefulness of Acetazolamide in those heart failure patients with refractory oedema.  

                                               Karen Sanders

RN (cert); Coronary Care (cert); B.App Sci (Nurs); Grad Dip Ed & Tr

After completing nursing training in 1984, Karen undertook a post basic Coronary Care certificate in 1986 at The Royal Melbourne Hospital.  Karen has since consolidated cardiac nursing in various clinical, managerial, educational and project roles at Royal Melbourne Hospital, The Alfred and currently The Austin hospital in Melbourne.  Karen is currently undertaking a Master of Nursing Practice at Deakin University and is in an acute cardiac NP candidate role at Austin Health. With a focus on ensuring quality clinical care and optimal outcomes for all cardiac patients Karen’s areas of interest include: equity of access; the application of evidence based practice and benchmarking; mentorship to all cardiology team-members; promotion of cardiac nursing as a specialty at all levels; encouraging ongoing education for cardiac nurses and development of career opportunities in clinical areas; and clinically based nursing research and audits.  Karen’s areas of interest are broad and include ACS, arrhythmias, heart failure, intervention, ECG and pacing.  She is also the nurse representative on the ACS subcommittee of the Victorian DOH Cardiac Clinical Network and appreciates this opportunity to help influence the delivery of care to Victorian cardiac patients. Professional affiliations include membership of the Australian Cardiovascular Nurses College since its inception in 2007, and committee member from 2009 – current, as well as the Australian College of Critical Care Nurses; the Australian Resuscitation Council; the Cardiac Society of Australia & New Zealand (affiliate member) and the CSANZ Cardiovascular Nurses Council;  the Royal College of Nursing Australia and the Victorian Cardiac Nurses Association (committee member 1999 – 2006 including Vice President 2002 -2005).  

                           Maria Sheehan:  Secretary

RN, BNSc, Grad Dip Cardiac Nursing, MN (Nurse Practitioner)

Maria has worked in Cardiac Nursing for approximately 20 years in New Zealand, England & for the past 10 years in Western Australia.   Moving to Sydney in 2010 coincided with obtaining a Nurse Practitioner position and she is currently enjoying the challenges that establishing her role within a service providing chronic cardiac nursing and it’s management brings.   Maria completed a Masters in Nursing Practice (NP) in 2007 whilst establishing a heart failure service.  Within that service Maria launched a nurse led heart failure clinic, working collaboratively with the cardiologists.   She established nursing led clinics for pre-procedure ICD patients and regularly ran support groups for these patients and their support people.   Maria was a member of the working group that produced the initial version of the WA Cardiac Networks’ Heart Failure Management Guidelines and is currently in a working party formulating guidelines for the management of patients with ICDs at the end of life.  In WA she was  involved in research investigating the use of telemonitoring in heart failure patients.  Maria is passionate about maintaining and improving the role for cardiac nurses in the holistic management of chronic & complex cardiac patients.  When Maria is not at work she enjoys theatre, movies, being active outdoors & riding her Ducati Monster.

                                                Snez Stolic  

Snezana is a registered nurse and lecturer in the Bachelor of Nursing Undergraduate Program at the School of Nursing and Midwifery, Queensland University of Technology.  She has more than 24 years experience working in the cardiac nursing field.  She is currently undertaking her PhD in the area of cardiac rehabilitation nursing and has an interest in symptom management.  Snez’s PhD thesis is titled “The Evaluation of Symptom Management Program for People with Acute Coronary Syndrome.”  She has publications on telephone support interventions for people discharged with cardiac disease and evaluation of the acute pain service program for people following cardiac surgery.   

                                                  Dr  Jo Wu  

Jo is a Research Fellow, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, Queensland University of Technology.  Her doctoral studies emanated from over 16 years’ clinical experience in the Coronary Care Unit where she observed differences in the progress of cardiac patients with diabetes. Her post-doctoral studies have continued to advance knowledge in the promotion of self-management for patients with coronary heart disease and diabetes.  Jo is currently collaborating with clinicians, national and international researchers towards further studies on promoting self-management.

Jo has been awarded a number of research grants, has published papers in refereed journals and has presented at several national and international conferences.   She has been an expert panel reviewer on a Joanna Briggs Institute systematic review, a reviewer of nursing/behavioural journals, nursing textbook chapters and grant applications.  Jo supervises higher degree research students.