Ms. Judith Nelmes, Director of Nursing for PediatricsI have recently arrived from Australia and have commenced working in the position of Director of Nursing for Pediatrics at Hamad General Hospital. I have 32 years of healthcare and nursing experience and have held many leadership positions including the Chief Nurse Pediatrics at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital Adelaide South Australia, Director of Nursing and Patient Care Services Mater Children’s Hospital Brisbane Australia and General Manager of the Indian Ocean Territories Health Services. I hold a bachelor's of nursing degree and master's in pediatric nursing and child and adolescent mental health nursing from Flinders University Adelaide South Australia.
What I have found most rewarding in my career is that nursing gives me the privilege to help others and make a difference to children’s lives. From our most involved surgical case, to our simplest clinic visit, we can and we do make a difference for our patients and their families. We can make them laugh and help them feel at ease in stressful times – we are their advocates.
In my current position at Hamad General Hospital, I start each morning by reviewing the activities and issues that have occurred over the six pediatric units and approx 300 nursing staff for whom I am accountable. I attend Patient Status Report Meetings for an update on inpatient status and bed management.
After this it is time to do rounds with the pediatric head nurses. The rest of my day is usually made up of meetings, meetings and more meetings that serve goals on ensuring that our services provide best practice and quality child and family centered outcomes for children and their families. My work days involve many responsibilities and each day is often completely different to the previous day including meeting with the staff nurses on their units, meeting with the head nurses, attending HMC/SickKids Partnership Taskforce Meetings, attending Pediatrics Department meeting, implementing the 'Arts in Healing Program' (which has included escorting actors and ventriloquists to entertain patients and taking the children to see Disney on Ice), leading 'Rounding for Outcomes Workshops', developing a strategy in Pediatric Nursing in consolation with all the stakeholders, selecting and buying toys for the children on the Units, liaising with the HGH Child Life Volunteers, recruitment of nursing staff and finally development and implementation of best practice patient services and quality initiatives.
It is an absolute pleasure to be working for HMC and being a part of the development of patient and family health services in Qatar. The children we care for are a constant inspiration for me to do my best today and to strive to do better tomorrow. I’m inspired by the precious smiles of the children we care for, their courage, the trust their families place in us and the awesome responsibility we have during their time of need of our services.
If you can get a child to smile through their tears, it’s as if time stops and nothing else matters in that moment.
