2015 Lifetime Achievement Honour recipient Megan Scully (centre), Her Excellency the Honourable Kerry Sanderson, Governor of Western Australia (left) and the winner from 2013 Professor Ruth Letts (right)
A nurse who has dedicated almost half a century to helping others was recently honoured at a gala awards ceremony.
Megan Scully, the nursing coordinator at WA Health’s Communicable Disease Control Directorate (CDCD), was given a Lifetime Achievement Award at the WA Nursing and Midwifery Excellence Awards.
Megan completed her studies in nursing and midwifery in 1968, with post-graduate training in Community and Public Health. After working in the UK as a nursing supervisor, community midwife and health visitor she emigrated to WA in 1982.
After working for Silver Chain as a midwife and a nurse she accepted a position as a senior community nurse in the Armadale Health Service, subsequently working as an advanced community nurse-manager for the South Metropolitan Health Service.
In 1994 she took a change in direction and became a Communicable Disease Control nurse practitioner with the forerunner of the CDCD. And since 2001 she has been the nursing coordinator for Communicable Disease Control at CDCD giving her responsibility for supervising nursing services at both the Central Immunisation Clinic and Perth Chest Clinic and supporting public health nurses in regional areas.
The structure for public health nursing particularly owes much to Megan’s work and vison. Significant numbers of nurses who work in community and public health have been mentored by her. The protocols used for public health nursing are, in large part, the result of Megan’s work.
Professor Tarun Weeramanthri, WA Health’s Chief Health Officer and Assistant Director General, said: “It’s been a privilege to have seen how Megan applies her experience and skills in nursing to the challenge of promoting health through immunisation and disease control. She combines empathy with detailed technical knowledge, as all exemplary nurses do.
“When we worked together a few years ago on a detailed review of tuberculosis care, she was open-minded, systems-focused and crafted the recommendations around education, training and communication.”