We are excited to announce that Dexter Catambay who is the Head of Programs for Nursing at North Regional TAFE has been selected as a finalist for Curtin University, School of Education Teaching Excellence Award.
Here is Dexter’s story in his own words:
“In 2015, I left behind my comfortable city life and career trajectory to move to South Hedland with the hopes of contributing to the social capital of Pilbara. I initially worked as a Registered Nurse in Hedland Health Campus before transferring to Pilbara Institute as a Health Sciences Lecturer in 2016.
I find my role at NRTAFE to be serendipitous in nature because it never crossed my mind to work in a formal classroom environment, yet here I am. I love innovation and technology. I have led design to implementation of various digitisation projects for our nursing program which I am most passionate about. I think it sums up NRTAFE purpose well, which is creating opportunities through great learning experiences.
Offering a great learning experience through digital training ensures that our future ENs are prepared for the digital future. With the massive digitalisation currently happening in the health sector, it is important that we align our nursing program with the industry to meet their expectations.
The Teaching Excellence Award recognises those who have the ability and skills to inspire students of all ages, and recognises the significant creative, intellectual, and conceptual demands required to teach. I am thankful for being a finalist for this award. My objective is to make sure that our future rural Enrolled Nursing (EN) workforce has the digital competence required for them to succeed in an ever increasing digital health care environment that WA is heavily relying on to improve the health outcomes of its rural residents. There is a known discrepancy between health outcomes of rural and metropolitan residents, thus I aim to contribute to helping lessen this gap through digital health training.
I want to thank everyone who continuously supports me and allows me to succeed in my lecturing role.”
We wish Dexter the best of luck for the announcement! Winners will be revealed at the Awards Gala Presentation Dinner on the 21 October 2022.