GLOBE-TROTTING Terry Swanson has advised doctors from Johannesburg to Budapest about how to properly dress wounds.
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Now the Warrnambool-based nurse practitioner has been admitted as a Fellow of the Australian Wound Management Association.
Mrs Swanson was inducted alongside former Australian of the Year and burns specialist Fiona Wood, Austin Health aged care chief Professor Michael Woodward and Western Australia University medical academic Laurie Foley.
She has specialised in wound management for more than a decade and now speaks on the subject at international medical conferences and is the co-editor of a book on the subject to be released later this year.
"It's a tremendous honour.
"The fellowship has quite a strict criteria and when you're included next to names like Fiona Wood and Michael Woodward its quite humbling," Mrs Swanson said.
"I was one of the first nurse practitioners in Australia to specialise in wound management, so it has been an area of medicine that I've worked with closely.
"The fellowship is an honorary role but it does give me the opportunity to discuss and consult with experts in the field from across the globe and to improve my understanding and hopefully the knowledge of others."
Originally from Springfield, Illinois in the United States, Mrs Swanson emigrated to Australia in 1988 with her university lecturer husband.
She settled in Warrnambool in 1993 and started work as an operating theatre nurse at South West Healthcare's Warrnambool hospital.
Mrs Swanson went on to become a part-time wound consultant at the hospital and in 2004 was endorsed as one of Australia's first nurse practitioners.
"I have been working in a mentor role with new nurses for some time so I want to continue to do that as well as sharing my clinical experience with colleagues," she said.
