Kerryn Ernst

Kerryn has always wanted to be a nurse, and after her paternal Aunt passed away from breast cancer, she knew that was an area she wanted to specialise in. About the same time, the McGrath Foundation was starting. She was lucky enough to have the right background and oncology and palliative care experience to get the position.

Kerryn loves caring for people and their families, making sure they have the right support and information and receive quality care.

Kerryn has been a Breast Care Nurse (BCN) for over fifteen years and with the McGrath Foundation as a Metastatic Breast Cancer Specialist Nurse for the last ten years at the Canberra Region Cancer Centre.

Kerryn has a Masters in Nurse Practitioner and Palliative Care. In 2017 Kerryn was awarded a Public Service Medal for providing excellent care to the Canberra Community.

She was part of the McGrath Foundation project team to develop a Model of Care for Breast Care Nurses in Australia with the aim of standardising the way breast care nursing is delivered across the continuum of care, including diagnosis, treatment, rehabilitation, follow-up and palliative care; with guiding principles that are patient centric, support multi-disciplinary care and is evidence based.

This project was completed and rolled out to the McGrath breast cancer nurses in 2020. It has proven to be very successful, with nurses having the tools and resources on hand to deliver excellent patient care.

Kerryn is currently working on another project with the McGrath Foundation, looking at providing specialised cancer nurses to patients with any type of advanced cancer.