Burnside Hospital's dedicated specialist breast care nurses have been an integral part of the Breast and Endocrine Centre for more than 17 years, providing integrated nursing to patients undergoing breast cancer treatment at the Breast and Endocrine Centre and the Burnside Hospital. Our Breast Care Nurses, Jane Marsh and Chris Mundy are specially trained registered nurses. They provide a point of contact and familiar face to assist with navigation of the pathway of care for patients, families and significant others affected by a breast cancer diagnosis. Our breast cancer nurses are available for information, provision of education resources, assistance with obtaining prostheses, psycho-social support and counselling, awareness of the support services available in the community in both the metropolitan, rural and remote settings.
Our breast nurses are available to answer questions pertaining to your treatment at the centre during business hours and provide a dedicated after hours on-call service for advice and support.
The support you receive from the nurses begins when you enter our centre, and is available on an ongoing basis. The nurses have links with breast care nurses in rural and remote communities for local support. They will be responsible for booking any tests or if you are admitted to Burnside Hospital, our breast care nurses will visit you each day to spend some time with you and, importantly listen to how you're feeling, teach you arm exercises for recovery and educate you about home care and anything else that is pertinent to your post operative recovery.
Our surgeons are also involved in research projects so you maybe invited to be involved and will receive the appropriate written information about this and an opportunity to discuss and clarify with the nurses. Our breast care nurses co-ordinate our weekly multi-disciplinary team meeting and work very closely with our specialist breast surgeons and other members of the team.