The registered nurse (RN) from Fiji, Pacific nursing advocate and NZNO member has shared her nursing journey with the Kaitiaki podcast — including her career inspiration, her mum.
McKay Vucago graduated as an RN in 2003 after heading straight into training, aged 18, from secondary school.
She came to New Zealand in 2008 for a holiday, completed her registration in 2009 and started working at Kenepuru hospital in Porirua, north of Wellington. Since then she has completed her masters, is a casual clinical tutor for Victoria University with the masters of nursing program, and is working on her PHD proposal. She is a specialty clinical nurse in the Pacific health specialty services at Wellington hospital.
Listen to the Kaitiaki podcast here.
However her career started in a Suva hospital back in 2003, she said. Nurse training was geared up so that after a couple of weeks of orientation, nurse graduates were “on the go” on the hospital floor. “It was scary and exciting at the same time.”
In Fiji, the RN’s mahi included obstetrics — they were able to deliver babies, which was something that McKay Vucago misses these days in Aotearoa.
One day she had to deliver three babies within five minutes of each other. She and another staff member were the only senior nurses on at the time — her colleague simultaneously running to the outpatient clinic to help deal with broken bones coming in from rugby games as it was a Saturday.
‘It was scary and exciting at the same time.’
“So to me that was an experience I’ll never forget, and so that was quite an exhilarating moment.”
McKay Vucago’s nursing dreams have become a reality — but they started when she saw the impact her mum Filo McKay, a respected nurse, made in their community.
“I could see the rewards that she reaped, not only in her professional life, but also it was satisfying to see how she made people smile, how they got to know her in the community.”