Queens Birthday Honours for St Vincent's Nurse You are here:HomeNewsroomNews Queens Birthday Honours for St Vincent's Nurse 21 Jun 2021 St Vincent’s nurse, Marea Reading OAM, has received a 2021 Queens Birthday Honour, for her contribution to nursing. Marea Reading has been part of the broader St Vincent’s family since 1958, when she commenced her nurse training at The Mater Hospital in North Sydney. Following a stint at the Mater in Brisbane, Marea returned to Sydney in 1964 to work at St Vincent’s specialising in cardiothoracic nursing, where she became Nurse In-Charge until 1969. In 1973 Marea began coordinating the St Vincent’s Cardiothoracic Nursing course, and continued to implement the Cardiothoracic Nursing post-registration graduate diploma for more than 30 years When specialty nursing education transferred from hospitals to the tertiary education sector in 1995, Marea attained a joint assignment with the Australian Catholic University in collaboration with St Vincent’s Hospital Sydney, ensuring the continuation of theory and clinical nursing practice as essential to nursing education. At the request of Dr Victor Chang, cardiothoracic and heart lung transplant surgeon at St Vincent’s Hospital, Marea and Professor Don Harrison instituted an education program for cardiothoracic nurses at Gleneagles Hospital in Singapore in the 1980’s. This involved flying back and forth a week at a time to provide teaching and delivery support, using her annual leave to accommodate this program for over 5 years. In a similar way, she also established the cardiothoracic nursing course at Grantham Hospital in Hong Kong and in Indonesia. In the early 2000’s, Marea was instrumental in developing a program at SVH that would encourage registered nurses without experience in specialty nursing practice to undertake a skills development program, consisting of clinical placement and supported learning in the workplace over a six month period. While she officially retired in 2007, Marea’s nursing career didn’t end there. She has been a regular contributor to the Intensive & Critical Care Nursing Journal and Australian Critical Care Journal with over 65 publications, and has delivered lectures at various conferences. Additionally, Marea continues to facilitate the Advanced Life Support course here at St Vincent’s every month. Marea’s extraordinary career along with her passion for and dedication to cardiothoracic nursing is very much deserving of this prestigious recognition, and we are proud to call her a St Vincent’s Nurse. Congratulations Marea.