Bachelor of Nursing

Murdoch's nursing degree puts 20 weeks of supervised work experience into the course, spread across hospitals, aged care and community health settings rather than concentrated in a single block. Students typically encounter several different care contexts before they graduate rather than specialising in one setting by default. The School of Nursing's placement partners span both metropolitan Perth hospitals and rural WA services, so students can end up doing a rotation somewhere quite different from where they studied.

Before students reach a real ward, the course leans on simulated clinical environments and case-based learning to build competence and confidence, a fairly standard approach in Australian nursing education now, but one Murdoch runs with dedicated simulation labs on its Perth campus. Specialty placement areas mentioned by the school include gerontology, mental health, paediatrics and critical care, giving students exposure to sub-specialties they might not otherwise encounter until postgraduate study.

On graduation, students are eligible to register with the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia through AHPRA, and the degree is commonly used as a springboard into postgraduate specialisation: critical care, mental health nursing or midwifery graduate-entry programs are the usual next step for those who want to sub-specialise.