"Now, she's the teacher and I'm the nurse," Ms Hawkins laughs.

Ms Hawkins began her nursing career in 1970 at Sydney's Royal North Shore Hospital and has just retired from her role as a clinical nurse consultant for emergency medicine with the Murrumbidgee Local Health District.

"We had a cousin who was the charge nurse of the emergency department at the Mater hospital, so I guess it was in the family," she said.

"I did a couple of other certificates. Obviously my training started as a hospital-based training. I did general nursing, I did obstetrics, I did cardio-thoracics. But I decided I really wanted to be an emergency nurse.

"I was away overseas for two-and-a-half years. I nursed and other jobs I got were because of my nursing.

"In 1978, I came back and got a job. Jobs were hard to get, but luckily I got one back at Royal North Shore in the emergency department.

"I went on and did an emergency certificate and emergency was my love from there on."

Nursing has taken Ms Hawkins, 67, around the world.

"I nursed in London, but through nursing I worked on a kibbutz in Israel, where I was allowed to work in the baby house because I had obstetrics, where normally you're not allowed to do that," she said.

"I worked on a farm in Norway and because I was a nurse, I had to help the farmer to skin a calf. 'And you're the nurse, so you'll help'.

"I nannied in Canada and through nannying in Canada - for an orthopaedic surgeon - is how I got to Ecuador."

Ms Hawkins is getting ready to make her 10^th trip to Ecuador to work with Operation Walk Canada, a group which provides orthopaedic surgery in communities there.

"They do a lot of hip replacement on mostly older women and I work as the pre-op nurse," she said.

"But when they are busy, I work in theatres or work in the wards. You just do what needs to be done.

"You work hard. It is a 10-day turnaround. They do a large number of operations and you come home exhausted, but you get more than you put into it.

"They are the people who couldn't afford it themselves. They are so grateful and so keen to get back on their feet.

"They come back the next year, sort of 'look at me, look at me, I can walk, I can dance'. It's beautiful. It's very, very special."

Having started her career in Sydney, Ms Hawkins came to Wagga in 1992.

"I was one of the founding members of what was then the ENA NSW, which was a chapter of ENA USA. In the late 70s-early 80s, emergency was becoming a specialty in its own right, and so we broke away from critical care/ICU to become an emergency nurses association," she said.

"One of the things we decided to do as a group from Sydney was some education in the rural settings because we felt they were missing out.

"One of those rural education weekends was in Tumut and Marg Dennis, who happened to be the nursing unit manager of the emergency department at the time, said to me 'I've got the very job for you', so that's how I came to Wagga.

"Emergency nursing is different every day of the week and I guess if you're someone who needs to know where you're up to all day, emergency nursing is not the role for you. You need to be able to turn your hand to anything at the time.

"I guess for the last 15 years I've done more education than working in the departments. That's been my passion down here. To make the nurses in smaller hospitals very comfortable and supported in their roles.

"The nurses in the smaller hospitals, you have to take your hat off to them. They're working there without immediate medical support and they do an amazing job. They have to be the ward nurse, the cardiac nurse, the emergency nurse, the infection control nurse all rolled into one, and right alongside them are the enrolled nurses who work incredibly hard as a team with them.

"That's been my biggest passion: Looking after those nurses."

After her work in Ecuador, Ms Hawkins is looking forward to taking some time for herself.

"It's time to let someone else take over with some new ideas and new enthusiasm," she said.

"I want to learn to paint. Watercolours is where I want to end up.

"There will always be travel on the cards. I love travel."

Shannon Evans, who is now a nursing educator based in West Wyalong, has known Ms Hawkins for 11 years.

"She came here as a clinical nurse consultant for training," Ms Evans said.

"I was in awe of her and completely intimidated by her vast amount of knowledge, but she was so friendly.

"Anne and I have since formed as lovely friendship. She is my mentor.

"She is like the matriarch of MLHD emergency nursing."

Ms Evans said Ms Hawkins regularly visited the Murrumbidgee's other hospitals to conduct training and to review complex cases.

"We don't always get a consultant, but Anne has made her mission to get out to see staff," she said.