It was Jenny McKenzie's experiences as a young nurse that helped form her resolve to specialise in palliative care.
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"I was a second year nurse at the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne - I'm from the country, from Corowa - and I looked after a patient also from the country," Ms McKenzie said.
"As a second year student nurse, you don't have any technical skills particularly, and it was just the small things I really enjoyed in the experience of looking after her.
"Her family tracked me down six weeks later to say thank you for her care and I guess that sort of hooked me in."
Ms McKenzie, a Wagga palliative care nurse practitioner who was named the 2018 staff member of the year at the NSW Health Awards, has this week marked Palliative Care Week with her colleagues.
"Palliative Care Week is themed 'it's more than you think'. What we are really looking at when we do it is broadening the interest in and knowledge of palliative care," she said.
"A lot of people think 'palliative care' and they think it's dying and end of the life care, but really it's much more than that.
"We see people, on and off for years in some cases, many weeks, many months, and we get to know them and its about their care and what's important to them. We are more than that last little bit of care."
Ms McKenzie said while the current coronavirus pandemic had "made our year very interesting", it was largely businesses as usual with some added safety considerations for staff and for patients and their families.
"We are still open for business and we are still seeing our people. We are very grateful that our area has been protected a bit from COVID. Touch wood, that will continue and we hopefully get through this pandemic fairly intact," she said,
Ms McKenzie describes her job as caring for people who have a life-limiting illness.
"People with cancers, people heart failure, respiratory failure, end stage diabetes to a degree, neuromuscular degenerative diseases. there's lots, we don't discriminate about what the disease group is because generally if people have got symptoms, it's the same. Pain, breathlessness, problems with bowels, nausea and vomiting," she said.
"So we work towards getting to know our patients, putting them and their families first, working out what's important to them and then developing care around them.
"For some people, the biggest concern is who is going to feed the cat, who's going to look after that animal when they can't. so that's what we work on first, then their physical issues if they've got any. It's a very rewarding area to work in."
Ms McKenzie said there were a lot of support organisations available, but often the best way to find help for a patient was to look to their family and friends.
"There's lot of support organisations around, but sometimes it's a matter of dipping into someone's own support networks." she said.
"There's a lot of people who are willing to help someone who has got an illness, but they don't know how to. A lot of people don't like asking for help and need that little bit of a push to do it, but usually it happens.
"It's very rare we cannot find someone to do that."
Ms McKenzie said palliative care staff could have a "fantastic, positive impact on people's lives for a prolonged period of time".
"It's one of the beautiful things, when you meet people who have been told they have got a limiting illness and they are going to die, and we let them know 'no, you've got a bit of living to do yet. You can have a holiday and you can make the most of the life you've got left'.
"There's a lot of laughs along the way. There's a few tears, but you can achieve so much.
"When you get into palliative care as a career, I think you're going to be in it for a very long time., It's a very rewarding area and, I guess, we are people who know bad things happen to good people."