Trying his hand at everything equipped Ty Simpson for a pioneering pathway in the new field of CAR T-Cell therapy.

Ty started his health journey studying podiatry on the NSW Central Coast.

He says, at the time, he heard a nursing student say, “Oh, it was amazing! We got to ride in the chopper on nursing placement.”

“And I’m thinking, ‘I’m totally in the wrong profession here.’ So that year, I transferred out of podiatry, – thank God – and into nursing,” he told the NSWNMA’s recent Professional Day.

Nurses, he says, are curious and need to stay curious. His own development in nursing embodies this maxim and has led to a fruitful, exciting and unexpected pathway of career development in a burgeoning field of haematology.

“I did my nursing placement all around New South Wales: Westmead, Royal North Shore, Broken Hill, the private sector – working with nurses that were nurse consultants, nurse specialists. And also, of course, getting those fundamental skills on the unit.

“I did a little bit of everything in my placement, which I strongly encourage nursing students (to do).

“Try and shake it up and don’t do the same thing. Because what I thought I wanted to do as a nursing student is not what I’m doing now.”

Ty says he worked in ED, mental health and in a cardiothoracic high dependency unit. During COVID he even worked for a clinical trials company.

“These companies are cashed up, private pharma companies, and they want nurses that have high dependency experience. They send nurses on clinical trials all around Australia.

“During lockdown, I was the only person on a flight to Hobart from Sydney. There’s a photo of me, with the four flight attendants, social distancing, of course, up the back of the plane eating all the business class meals!

“So, I did that for a little bit (but) I was really wanting to get back into the hospital.”

Nurses know how to adapt and learn

After he moved to Melbourne with his partner, Ty found himself unemployed. “There was a job advert at the Alfred Hospital, which was the hospital across the road from where we had our rental,” he says “They were looking for a haematology clinical trial coordinator – with high dependency experience – and I thought, ‘I’m qualified!’

Ty got the job as the trial coordinator and was given a portfolio of patients to look after who were “receiving something called CAR T-Cell therapy”.

“All of this, by the way, is just to show how quickly nurses can adapt and learn. I didn’t know what febrile neutropenia was. I didn’t know what a lymphocyte count was. And so, you just get into these jobs, and you just learn and learn and learn.

“In 2021 we infused our first patient, and over the course of the last five years, we’ve infused over 360 patients with this life-saving treatment that started back then. So, it’s come a long way.”