Beloved QEII Duty Nurse Manager Jeannette Kassulke is hanging up her scrubs after 45 remarkable years of nursing across Australia.
Jeannette’s adventure-filled career journey traces back to the early 80s, when she completed her training at the Mater before hard-launching into ED, theatre and ICU nursing at QEII Hospital.
The adventure soon led Jeannette to Perth, where she completed further training in neurosurgery, wound management and stomal therapy, with forays into renal nursing, ICU, and CCU.
Jeanette returned to Queensland in 1991, with a dream, a growing family, and a flourishing skillset under her cap.
Over the next two decades, Jeannette would earn a wealth of experience at Logan Hospital, where she steadily climbed the ranks through project work, clinical facilitation, and nurse education across medical and surgical specialties.
Jeannette answered the call to Duty Nurse Manager at QEII in 2018, where her career came full circle.
“It was like coming home, and I've been here ever since,” she said.
Jeannette’s passion for patient-centred care and lifelong learning would inspire countless trainees until her retirement this October.
“Two teams really stand out to me over my career. One was at Logan Hospital Ward 2H - the surgical team there was a really melded team. The second was the Duty Nurse Manager team at QEII. That's really been the highlight for me.”
As she waves good-bye to her QEII family, Jeannette leaves a legacy of enduring friendship, compassionate care, and a few words of advice to the next generation.
“It’s all about the patient. My only advice is, always make your patients your focus. All the other stuff is secondary. It’s really about the patient,” she said.
QEII thanks Jeanette for her dedication to patient-centred care and wishes her a happy retirement.