Ryan Thompson – Advanced Practice Nurse (APN)
27th November 2024 | Back to News
Ryan Thompson is an expat from Colorado USA, who studied virology at University of Hawaii and had a successful career as a licensed builder for more than 20 years working for a Kiwi Building company on Oahu before he decided to retrain as a nurse.
“I was mostly focusing on acute care – I worked with outpatients and with a range of specialists which was a great way to cross-train,” he said.
He shifted here with his family in 2013, initially working as a builder in the Gisborne area until he decided to follow his passion in medicine. Returning to study in his mid 40’s at EIT, he completed a Bachelor of Nursing in 2019.
He started working with St Johns ambulance prior to his working as a RN in the emergency department at Gisborne Hospital just as the Covid-19 pandemic hit.
“It was a fantastic experience, the best time to become a nurse in my opinion because I think nursing was locked into an archaic model prior to that but suddenly, everything had to
change. Although we didn’t get Covid cases initially, we had to train and prepare for every worst case scenario,” Ryan said.
While working at Gisborne Hospital, he tried to broaden his skills and be a “jack of all
trades” picking up shifts wherever he was needed and working in ED, ICU, jumping on patient transfers from time to time and working in the outpatient department with many specialists.
“I was mostly focusing on acute care – I worked with outpatients and with a range of specialists which was a great way to cross-train,” he said.
Ryan took over the plastics portfolio for the Gisborne region working under Waikato HOD Dr. Deirdre Seoighe looking after Gisborne patients with skin cancers, and trauma, nerve, vascular and bone reconstruction from MVA’s, forestry, accidents, often with orthopaedic oversight.
He did post-grad training in Aeromedical Retrieval and Transport (Aero RT) and is qualified to accompany critical patients on a plane when they are being transported to Waikato hospital for treatment.
When he left the hospital, he developed a business plan to start a Gisborne Fracture Clinic in with orthopaedic surgeon Duncan Cundall-curry. The ACC-funded clinic helps to offload the busy hospital system and delivers the service free to patients. They manage and take care of acute injuries like broken bones, sprains, muscle and skeletal injuries with referrals from GP and physiotherapists in the region as well as ED referrals.
“We see lots of sports and accident injuries from the region and treat children to elderly for these.”
Ryan is on the pathway to become a nurse practitioner because he wanted “to dig a little bit deeper”.