Nurse has no regrets

By Kath Gannaway
SHERYL Treen has no hesitation in recommending nursing as a career.
There is a caveat, however.
“You have to be willing to put a lot of yourself into it,” she said looking back on a career which she started as a 17-year-old and of which 35 years were at Healesville Hospital.
For a young nurse, Healesville Hospital presented as a progressive organisation.
It was second only after Melbourne’s Austin Hospital to do away with headwear.
When Ms Treen started the hospital then had a four bed children’s ward and a 20 bed general ward, an emergency service staffed by local GPs on call, a surgical service and of course maternity.
The doctors did the X-rays and provided much of the treatment on site.
The almost limitless scope of injuries children manage to inflict on themselves, and others, along with sports injuries were common and there was no escaping the tragic deaths and serious injuries over the years.
“You got to do a lot of things in that environment,” Ms Treen said. “When I started the ambulance was run by volunteers and if someone was really sick a nurse would have to go down the line with the patient.
While the hospital itself was keeping up with the times some traditions were slower to shake off.
Both Ms Treen and husband Roger’s children, Matthew and Meegan, were born at the hospital but with no maternity leave, she had to resign when Matthew came along.
Nursing multiple generations of the local families is one of the satisfying aspects of a long, local nursing career.
“I’ve been there at the birth of kids, who have come back to have kids of their own, and nursed other family members at the end of their lives,” she said.
“You can get a lot of satisfaction from knowing you made their end as comfortable as you could, and often you share the family’s grief.
“These days it’s accepted that the medical profession will shed a tear when someone dies if they have become close to them.”
Any regrets?
“None. Nursing can be demanding but it was all I ever wanted to do and I have loved it,” Ms Treen said.
And she is loving retirement, too, with no set plans but lots of options and time to take them up.