Mandurah resident and Murdoch University lecturer Prue Andrus has been named WA’s top nursing educator in 2017.
Ms Andrus, who is a nursing lecturer and simulation lead, was one of twelve nurses and midwives honoured at the 2017 WA Nursing and Midwifery Excellence awards ceremony, taking home the Excellence in Education award.
Ms Andrus said she was thrilled and overwhelmed to receive this award.
“I feel very honoured to be recognised by my peers for my contributions to nurse education,” she said.
“My greatest success is that I love my job and look forward to it each day, and I am supported by an awesome team of exceptional colleagues.”
Ms Andrus is an expert in clinical simulation and is responsible for providing realistic healthcare training to Murdoch University’s nursing students.
These simulation learning environments ensure optimisation of the student’s clinical practice placement experiences over the three years of their program.
“By using simulation as a teaching method, I try to immerse students in the clinical healthcare environments that they will experience on placement and therefore help to prepare them to care for others,” Ms Andrus said.
Murdoch University’s head of nursing Cathy Fetherston said Ms Andrus was an outstanding role model for other nursing and midwifery educators, as well as for the future nurses and midwives.
“This award is a well deserved recognition of Prue's energy, positivity, creativity and considerable expertise in delivering her vision for the education of future nurses through immersion in simulated learning environments,” she said.
“In addition to her teaching, Ms Andrus regularly meets with industry providers to facilitate open communication and evaluative feedback on simulation exercises and education, for students to be industry ready and educative content to be applicable to real world nursing.”
A registered nurse for 32 years, Ms Andrus has brought a huge depth of experience to make learning 'real world' through virtual world scenarios.
Her award is the latest in a series of milestones in her career, including a joint Australian Award for University Teaching 2016: Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning and a joint Murdoch University Vice Chancellor's Award for Teaching Excellence in Teaching.
