QUT's School of Nursing will offer Australia's first postgraduate course for senior nurses in endoscopy, a vital procedure for early detection of cancer and other conditions.
QUT School of Nursing head Professor Patsy Yates said QUT's partnership with Queensland Health to deliver the Master of Nursing with a specialty focus on Nurse Endoscopy was a response to estimates that demand for endoscopies was set to double in the next five years.
"This masters program will help build a workforce of senior nurses able to perform the procedures," Professor Yates said.
"This partnership provides an important opportunity to design and deliver high-quality nursing education which meets the needs of our community and trains senior nurses to the same level of competency as doctors in order to become qualified.
"QUT's new masters level program will fill a major gap in Australia."
The course has been piloted in Victoria and Queensland where nurses were trained in endoscopy thorough the University of Hull in the UK.
"There is good evidence to support the role of nurse endoscopists and these positions are well-established in other countries such as the UK."
Professor Yates said QUT was delivering a graduate certificate level gastroenterology program to 50 nurses to improve patient care through better understanding and prepare them for further study.
Queensland Chief Nursing and Midwifery officer Dr Frances Hughes said the partnership would improve waiting times for the diagnostic procedure.
"Thousands of Queenslanders are currently waiting for endoscopic services and demand continues to grow as our population grows and ages," Dr Hughes said.
"This is about empowering our nurses to deliver potentially life-saving procedures that give our patients better outcomes."
The first cohort of up to 15 nurses will begin the masters program in January.
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Media contact: Niki Widdowson, QUT media, 07 3138 2999 or n.widdowson@qut.edu.au
