At the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Postgraduate Medicine we have a passion for finding better ways to educate and train nurses, midwives, medical practitioners and other health professionals and enhance their capacity to professionally and competently contribute to the improved well being in our community.

The School provides students, external partners and the community with access to a unique range of educational and research resources and programmes which:

Improve the capacity of individuals, teams and organizations to lead, facilitate and manage change and innovation across the health system;
Are appropriately tailored to local, state and international needs and standards;
Take a student-focused, creative approach to programme and project design and delivery;
Are the product of stakeholder collaboration and the best possible research; and Grow and adapt to meet emerging and future healthcare requirements.

We work closely with industry to develop courses that are practical and ensure our students emerge career-focused, well qualified and ready to contribute to the community.
In late 2007 the School's Nursing and Midwifery programmes transferred to the new Health and Wellness Building on the Joondalup Campus, providing students with state-of-the-art training and research facilities.
At ECU, as well as a start of year intake, we have a mid-year intake as well, to increase opportunities for potential students.

Nursing
ECU has the largest undergraduate nursing programme in WA.
ECU offers our undergraduate nursing students the opportunity to undertake all their practical placements in one clinical setting (longitudinal clinical partnerships). This means the students can focus far more on the actual clinical practice, as they're not distracted by having to adjust a new workplace with all its differences, each time they go out on clinical practice.

At the mid-point in their three year undergraduate course, ECU nursing undergraduate students can apply to undertake additional modules and if successful, obtain eligibility to register as an Enrolled Nurse. This Enrolled Nurse Registration Pathway Programme, is a first for Western Australia, and means ECU nursing students can work in the health care system in their spare time as Registered Enrolled Nurses, if they are successful in completing the extra modules. All of these new initiatives are workforce solutions by helping to bridge the transition from student to work-ready graduates and we are measuring these new initiatives in respect to effects on retention of Registered Nurses.

The Nursing degree programmes are designed to meet the needs of those with or without previous nurse education. Students undertake practice based clinical support in clinical settings and have continuing clinical partnership programmes available, providing students with an opportunity to emerge from tertiary education well qualified and ready to contribute to the community as healthcare professionals.

Our postgraduate Nursing degree programmes provide a variety of options including; Master of Nurse Education; Master of Research; Master of Nurse Education; Master of Clinical Governance; Master by Coursework; PhD; Graduate Certificate in Simulation Facilitation.

Postgraduate Medicine
The Postgraduate Medicine degree programmes provide health professionals with the opportunity to further their knowledge in the areas of preventive medicine; family medicine; palliative care; geriatric medicine; men's health; women's health; occupational medicine, health and safety and aviation medicine. Programmes are offered at Master, Postgraduate Diploma and Graduate certificate level.
Source: Associate Professor Jim Cross, Associate Dean, International Faculty of Computing, Health and Science Edith Cowan University
E-mail: j.cross@ecu.edu.au
David Samuel, Business Development Manager, Australian Trade Commission - Colombo, Sri Lanka
E-mail: David.Samuel@austrade.gov.au