Why June loves her job as a nurse in an aged care home

For Care Coordinator June Pan, working in aged care is about much more than just clinical tasks. It’s about the deep, family-like bonds she builds with the people she cares for every day.

June graduated with a Bachelor of Nursing from UniSA in 2014 and spent three years working as an agency nurse across many different facilities. 

However, she found a permanent home with Southern Cross Care, and she has now worked for six years at John Paul II Village Residential Care.

During her study June had clinical placements in a hospital setting, which she found didn’t have the opportunities for forming relationships that an aged care role has.

“In hospital you just take different patients, you don’t have any relationships. In aged care it’s different, you’re working with people for quite a period of time and you treat them as family,” she said.

"It is really nice when after your holiday you come back and residents say, 'we missed you so much'. It is really lovely."

June says the supportive environment and effective systems also make a big difference in her daily work.

"I always liked Southern Cross Care because the system has got high levels of instructions, they really create a supportive work environment, also the system is effective," Jun said.

She noted that tools like Medimap make it easy and safe for nurses to administer medication; while the PCS system helps with quick and detailed documentation for events like falls; and PainChek is helpful for getting an accurate pain score for residents.

These tools save nurses time and keep residents safer.

Nurses are also supported with regular paid training to build their skills and knowledge and respond to clinical trends, while June has chosen to develop her skills further through an Infection Prevention and Control course.

The teams who work around our nurses are another vital part of the supportive working environment.

"We’ve got a lot of support, like the manager and also clinical staff from Central Office," she said. 

"The team is good; the carers are doing their job under our supervision and we can’t do our jobs without the carers - they are really supportive doing whatever we advise them to do."

At Southern Cross Care we rely on multidisciplinary teams of compassionate staff to deliver our quality services, and we value the dedication of all our staff to helping residents and clients be Better for life.

Since January 2026, we have already trained over 130 Registered Nurses and Enrolled Nurses through our 12-month rolling education calendar.

Our training is interactive and based on the latest aged care standards and staff feedback. 

By providing regular face-to-face sessions and online modules, we ensure our people have the confidence and knowledge they need. 

For more information about working with Southern Cross Care visit our Careers Page.