Episode 120: From Nurse to Trailblazer:Hayley Hodgson on BuildingMaclean Medical with Heart
24th July, 2025
In this episode, we sit down with the dynamic and inspiring Haley Hodgson — nurse practitioner, founder of Maclean Medical, and all-round powerhouse. From her early days dreaming of a different path to building a thriving GP clinic grounded in compassion and community, Haley opens up about the real story behind her success.
We explore the pivotal moments that shaped her journey, the risks she took to follow her purpose, and the values she refuses to compromise on. With honesty, warmth, and a touch of humour, Haley reflects on what resilience looks like on the hard days, how she stays grounded, and why Maclean Medical is more than just a business — it’s a legacy.
Whether you're chasing your own big dream or just need a reminder that real success starts with staying true to yourself, this episode will leave you inspired, moved, and ready to back yourself.
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Just two industry experts (and guests) having a friendly chat and sharing our knowledge. We aim to raise your knowledge base and dis-spell any myths surrounding finance. tax and a range of other financial topics.
This is a safe space to ask questions and hear useful info on financial matters.
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DISCLAIMER- The information and material in this podcast, and supplementary and associated information available, is for general information only. It should not be taken as constituting professional advice from the podcast owners, and we recommend you seek independent suitable advice that is specific to your unique circumstances.
Podcast Transcript Available Here
Trudi Cowan (00:10.84)
Hello everyone and welcome to the final episode of season six of the Financial Fofu podcast. Today we have a very special guest for you today. Welcome Haley Hodgson from McLean Medical.
Haley Hodgson (00:25.803)
Thank you, Trudy.
Sarah Eifermann (00:28.169)
Now, this is our season finale. This is our sixth season finale. And we always like to end on a high with an inspirational business and life story. And so I thought Haley would be perfect for that. Haley and I met when I became chamber president and we finally caught up after talking on phone and email for about six months in about March. And she's doing some amazing things and her story is just an interesting one.
to hear. So thank you for joining us today. It's an absolute pleasure to have you on board, especially off the back. She had some big wins this weekend in our region's business awards, Clarence Valley Business Award. took out excellence in innovation, excellence in small business and business of the year.
Trudi Cowan (01:12.752)
Well done.
Haley Hodgson (01:12.801)
Ooh, the big one.
Sarah Eifermann (01:14.539)
Yeah, I had the pleasure of presenting the first two. That was kind of cool. They kind of they worked it out really well so that I'd be able to present them to you, which was lovely. But how are you feeling?
Haley Hodgson (01:28.577)
Yeah, good, good. It was a bit of a shock. I think I was saying to you that we were, when we applied and that we were hoping just to get a look in for the Excellence in Healthcare award. The category that we didn't win, we did get highly commended. So I was kind of excited. I was like, oh yeah, that second place, that'll work. And then we kind of switched off after that because I didn't really, you know.
Sarah Eifermann (01:40.363)
The category you didn't win.
Sarah Eifermann (01:49.794)
Yeah.
Haley Hodgson (01:54.699)
hold much aspirations for the rest, especially being a medical center, know, everyone always whinges about how expensive it is to go to the doctor and not being able to get into the doctor and all that sort of stuff. So I didn't really put much hope in the rest of the night. But we, yeah, we was big surprise, big shock. And it was very nice to walk up the room because we were right in the very back, which also led us to believe that we didn't have a chance. to...
Sarah Eifermann (01:57.059)
you
Sarah Eifermann (02:08.62)
Yeah.
Sarah Eifermann (02:17.858)
you
Trudi Cowan (02:20.759)
Hahaha!
Sarah Eifermann (02:20.875)
you
Haley Hodgson (02:22.497)
Literally, I think we were 100 metres away, but they did put the nurses in front of the bar and the toilets. So it was a great place to actually be. Yeah, big walk up the front and it was great to have Sarah up there to present the awards to us.
Sarah Eifermann (02:37.574)
That was exciting. So why don't you tell us a little bit about your journey in life? You are a nurse transitioning into what's called a nurse practitioner and for those of us or those those listening that haven't watched the resident on Netflix It's very popular in America where nurse practitioners has become a thing and it's moving in Australia and that allows you to do things Somewhat of what a GP can do so it's more than a nurse, but it's not a doctor, right?
Trudi Cowan (02:51.31)
Hahaha
Haley Hodgson (03:05.557)
Yeah, that's correct. So a nurse practitioner is a bit of a long journey. So the easiest way I kind of say or talk about it is that a doctor goes to uni and studies for like 10 years before they're allowed out in the open on their own. Whereas nurses, we go to uni for a few years, then we go out into the real world and get our hands dirty. And those of us that are heading in the right direction with advanced, they call it advanced practice nursing. So.
Sarah Eifermann (03:17.345)
Yeah.
Sarah Eifermann (03:32.418)
Mm-hmm.
Haley Hodgson (03:32.843)
we're working outside or at the very edge of our scope basically. So those of us that do that and decide to do suicide and go to university and do two master's degrees, can become a nurse practitioner. So we kind of do our study at the end rather than beforehand. So we've got all those years of experience beforehand, which is great because you can put it into real life as Bluey says.
Sarah Eifermann (03:44.992)
Mm-hmm.
Trudi Cowan (04:00.086)
Mm-hmm.
Sarah Eifermann (04:00.866)
Well, personally my experience when my leg got busted and I was in the ED at Grafton Bay's hospital and had a great team of nurses and then there was a junior, I think it was a registrar that was in, he was clearly fresh out of medical school and when they went to cast my leg, which is know snapped in the middle, both bones busted, they picked up my leg but he wasn't holding my foot.
And I was like, someone's got to grab my foot. And the nurse was like, what are you doing? And I was like, I could tell who the nurses were, like the experienced staff and the ones that I was like, no, you have to lift it higher, lift it higher. It's not straight. Like it's broken. Someone's got to pick it up. And then one of the nurses grabbed it and lifted it up.
Haley Hodgson (04:30.241)
You
Trudi Cowan (04:33.439)
Hahaha
Haley Hodgson (04:46.945)
Yeah, absolutely. Nurses run the hospital. They're the backbone of the hospital system. What's really different for us as nurse practitioners is over the last few years, it's really developed much more. And it was only last year, I think it was November last year, that they allowed nurse practitioners to actually work independently of doctors. So at the moment we have, I think there's about 3,000, between 3 4,000 nurse practitioners Australia wide.
Sarah Eifermann (04:51.564)
Yeah.
Sarah Eifermann (05:06.976)
Yes. Yeah.
Sarah Eifermann (05:15.66)
Mm-hmm.
Haley Hodgson (05:16.057)
which isn't a lot, but it's on the up. Most of them are in the hospital system. So they're very specific to stuff like renal, diabetes, pediatrics, you know, and they can only work within that scope. You absolutely get a specialty. Now they're leaning towards, or they've had the foresight to see that there's a huge big gap in primary healthcare. The GPs are...
Sarah Eifermann (05:26.518)
Yeah. Because you get a specialty, right? Yeah.
Trudi Cowan (05:41.614)
Mm.
Haley Hodgson (05:42.631)
aging, younger GPs aren't coming through, and there's gonna be colossal issues in the, well, it's already here. So they've actually put a lot of time and effort into funding over the last 12 to 18 months generalist nurse practitioners. So that's where I fit in. So Cassie that I work with in our Access Health Clinic, she's a generalist nurse practitioner and she was one of the trailblazers.
Trudi Cowan (05:52.298)
and
Trudi Cowan (06:00.248)
Yeah.
Haley Hodgson (06:09.387)
had a lot of trouble, a lot of trouble because she didn't fit into a category because as a nurse practitioner, traditionally you have to fit into a category. Being a bit of everybody, general dog's body, isn't accepted. So now that's changing and I was really lucky to get a scholarship to cover the full cost of my master's in nurse practitioner because I'm choosing to work as a generalist nurse practitioner.
Sarah Eifermann (06:35.212)
Yeah. So especially.
Trudi Cowan (06:36.043)
And that makes a lot of sense too because a lot of the things that people go to see the GP for, you know, aren't necessarily complex or complicated and they're probably things that as a nurse practitioner that you see all the time anyway so they're very easy to deal with rather than necessarily having to see the doctor.
Haley Hodgson (06:50.622)
Absolutely.
Haley Hodgson (06:55.669)
Yep, yep. And funnily enough, patients actually feel more comfortable with nurses. So they tend to like spill out a lot more stuff that they actually don't actually tell their GP ironically.
Sarah Eifermann (07:09.59)
Yeah. And in regional settings, where we are, like access to a GP is already very difficult to get access to, right? Like it's hard to happen. So the more nurse practitioners we can have come through that are able to do some of that primary healthcare, the greater load that is taken off the medical system and the hospital system, right? Cause everybody else ends up in emergency rather than seeing an access health practitioner.
through a clinic like your one, Haley. mean, talking of that, you've had 1200 plus patients in the three months since you opened of new, new to clinic patients. So not existing customers or clients that weren't, we're seeing doctors that have come to see the nurse, disease cats. These are new from the area because they can't get access. They don't have a GP.
Haley Hodgson (07:47.179)
Absolutely.
Haley Hodgson (08:01.761)
Absolutely, absolutely. So 1200, I think that's upward to 1300 since last week, because it's growing. So every day, we're on our numbers, about 80 % are new patients. Now, that's not counting the ones that turned up when we opened three months ago and have come back. We're not counting those. It's just initial presentations when we've got to actually fill in the paperwork and put them in.
Sarah Eifermann (08:07.689)
Now.
Sarah Eifermann (08:26.785)
Yeah.
Haley Hodgson (08:26.953)
A lot of them ask us, can we please become regular patients? And we say, we don't discriminate here. Keep your GP, see your GP when you need to, but we're also here as well.
Sarah Eifermann (08:39.372)
Fantastic, fantastic. So when did you decide you wanted to become a nurse?
Haley Hodgson (08:45.025)
That's a funny story. I wanted to become Bruce McEvaney when I was in high school. So love sport was very athletic, very sporty. And all I wanted to do was be Bruce McEvaney. So I think he used to like, he used to commentate on the swimming and the horse racing, that I watched the horse racing, but you know, like he was just on all the big sporting events and I wanted to be him. And this was back in the nineties.
Women weren't sports journalists back then. If they were, they were behind the scenes. They certainly weren't out in front of the microphone. So I did a stint in year 10 at the local paper in sports journalism. And then I very quickly realized that 90 % of it was behind a computer and only 10 % was actually enjoying the part of it that I really wanted to do.
So I rethought that and I thought, what's something that I can do that, you know, I can be practical and out there and outgoing and do all of those sorts of things. And if I changed my mind, it's okay because, know, like it's a one size fits all. So the night before my uni applications were due in, I changed my mind and changed all my Bruce McEvaney aspirations to Florence Nightingale applications instead.
Trudi Cowan (10:05.856)
Yeah.
Sarah Eifermann (10:06.562)
You
Haley Hodgson (10:08.819)
And my mom's kind of there saying, you absolutely certain this is what you want to do? Are you sure? I'm like, yeah, sure. Yeah, no, because nursing, can travel with nursing. If I don't like a certain area of nursing, I can move to a different area. There's so many things that I can do. It's limitless what I can do. She said, OK, rightio and left it. And then the next morning when I woke up, mom said to me, you do know that there's a long line. She said, my dad was a director of nursing. Your grandmother was a
was a nurse, know, like there's nurses throughout the family. So I kind of ran with it from there. And even when I went to uni, there was only such a small percentage of us that were school leavers. Most nurses become, or I'm talking registered nurses, become registered nurses later on. They've had children and, you know, made changes and they're older. So they decide to go back and study. So I think there was probably a hand, like I'm talking 20 or less.
Trudi Cowan (10:48.462)
Okay.
Haley Hodgson (11:05.976)
nurses that were school leavers. And then when we graduated, I think it was 250 of us start the degree. When we graduated, there was under 60. So yeah, and then, yeah, and then to follow on from that, when I did my first year out up at Pindarra on the Gold Coast, there was 12 of us start the new grad program. There was one of us finished.
Trudi Cowan (11:15.099)
Wow, that's a huge drop out, right?
Sarah Eifermann (11:29.026)
Hmm.
Trudi Cowan (11:29.165)
Wow.
Haley Hodgson (11:29.429)
they dropped out of nursing because they're the ones that did the degree because they thought, yeah, I want to do this. And then when it become that practical component, just went, no, this isn't for me. you know.
Sarah Eifermann (11:39.553)
Yeah. And it's hard, like nursing is hard. Like you guys wear the brunt of the patient and the medical staff. you're expected to pick up the pieces. Your caseload is usually too heavy. it's a tough gig being a nurse, like kudos to anyone out there that's listening that has nurses in their families or is one themselves because Haley you've absolutely smashed it. And then you decided because of everything we've talked about already that
Haley Hodgson (11:48.448)
Yeah.
Haley Hodgson (11:53.622)
Yeah.
Sarah Eifermann (12:08.214)
when McLean Medical was up for sale a few years ago. That was five years ago now, just before COVID.
Haley Hodgson (12:14.357)
Just after COVID it was, so I think we worked out. It's only been three years at the end of this year. Yeah.
Sarah Eifermann (12:15.478)
just after COVID.
three years. So she bought, she bought the local medical center that was going to close down if she didn't. And it had been running since the fifties and still in the same building probably. And you you took that on board and you've built it to what it is today. And like, for those that don't know a nurse owning a GP practice is very, very rare.
Trudi Cowan (12:25.582)
and
Haley Hodgson (12:31.328)
Yeah.
Sarah Eifermann (12:44.97)
It's also kind of frowned upon too, not because you're not capable and you don't have the capacity, just because it's not done.
Haley Hodgson (12:51.893)
Yeah, it's definitely not traditional. So traditional GP practices were a single GP in the back of his house or at the front of the house that opened up a GP practice. And that's where everyone came. This was going back many, many years ago. And that same tradition still follows on. And now we're seeing that that's not a viable model anymore.
Sarah Eifermann (13:08.14)
Yeah.
Haley Hodgson (13:16.929)
The cost is way too high to actually run that kind of model. So you've seen a lot of corporates come in where they've got 20 doctors working in the one building and they do offer sometimes bulk bill of services, but it's six minute medicine where you're in, out, get what you need, off you go. We don't have that option in the country. That's a city model and
In the country, we're still on the back of you see the same doctor that is the same doctor that your parents seen that delivered your parents and probably delivered you as well and possibly even your grandparents, like looked after your grandparents. So we're kind of catching the back end of that. We've got, look, we've had multi-retirements in the last five years in this area from older GPs. We still have a number of GPs working now that are over the age of 65.
some are over the age of 70 that are still holding those positions in our community because it's a job for life. Becoming a GP is different to a specialist. Specialists retire when they're in their 50s or early 60s sometimes, but becoming a GP, especially a rural GP, it's a job for life. there's definitely a massive gap there. The young doctors that are coming through aren't coming into GP lands. They're, you
Trudi Cowan (14:24.366)
Okay.
Haley Hodgson (14:43.605)
that the financial incentive and motivation is not there. And also the excitement, you know, like they all want to be specialists. Everyone wants to become a specialist. they're just not, they're not coming through. And post-COVID, we're not getting the overseas doctors from the countries like England and the US that we were getting pre-COVID. I think that's starting to happen again. But that gap, that pause was enough to really
put the dampeners on things.
Sarah Eifermann (15:15.496)
Yeah, borders being closed for as long as they were like had some serious implications on a range of different industries and that being one of them is that that transient migration where they might come out for a couple of years, live and work and see the country and you know, loco for you, but they're just they're not doing it like the they've gone elsewhere, you know, other countries that were open that allowed them to come and didn't make them jump through as many hoops. They've gone there instead and they've
settled usually in those countries instead of Australia as well.
Haley Hodgson (15:48.289)
Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. So yeah, look, it was interesting. I actually worked at the GP practice for about two years. I had a unexpected midlife baby and decided that I needed to be closer to home. so I went into the opportunity to come up and I went into GP land. I've done so many other things that I just...
I needed something that was... Okay. Okay, so let's start with obviously all my hospital nursing and in the hospital I specialized in... I've done orthopedics, I've done theatre, I've done women's health, palliative care, oncology is my biggest specialty, oncology and palliative care. I've done that in...
Sarah Eifermann (16:16.994)
List some of them for us so that we can get the comparison.
Haley Hodgson (16:45.057)
numerous hospitals. I've also done community health, so become a community health nurse and I was the chronic disease nurse for the Clarence Valley for a number of years as well as working in oncology in Grafton at the same time. And then before that I've done some nursing home stuff. So I've been a manager of multiple nursing homes, a director of nursing. I've set up aged care services as well.
So I needed to get away from that. That worked when my children were little, but I found it, I didn't find it rewarding. I found, I loved looking after the oldies, but when you're in a management role as a director of nursing, you're not a nurse. You're a manager. You're a manager and you're dealing with, mean, you call it the complaints department if you like, because that's what you're doing is managing complaints from all angles, not just the residents.
Sarah Eifermann (17:31.426)
Mm-hmm.
Trudi Cowan (17:31.734)
No, you're an inventor.
Haley Hodgson (17:44.917)
their families, the staff, contractors, outside sources, all the time. You you're the complaints department. And I didn't find that overly rewarding. Gave me a great setup for doing stuff in the future. So when I had another baby, I just decided that it was time for me to be home and be a mum for a while. Took the job at General Practice. Actually found it quite great because the two doctors I worked with gave me scope.
to actually be who I wanted to be. I wasn't just giving people a jab in the arm or putting a bandaid on. I was actually able to do more than that and be able to pull from my skills from working on oncology and various other places where I started doing venti sections and iron infusions and various other things on site. And then when the primary doctor decided to retire,
He had thoughts of retiring for a while and he was just, in the end, he was gonna close the doors because there'd been no offers. And again, like I said, people aren't buying general practices anymore. And we're in a really old building. It's the old Harwood Council Shire building. So it was one of the original buildings that was built when the town was created basically. So 1906, yeah, 1906 it was built. Yeah, yeah.
Sarah Eifermann (18:45.036)
Mm-hmm.
Trudi Cowan (18:49.549)
Yeah.
Sarah Eifermann (19:00.482)
Yeah, so late 18. Yeah, yeah, like 100 someone.
Haley Hodgson (19:05.985)
So there's not a lot that could be done with it. But anyway, he owned the building as well. And I just said to him one day, rather than closing the doors, we'd lost, I think we'd lost five or six GPs, not ourselves, but across the community in the few months prior. So I sat down with the other GP who also was nearing that retirement age. And we had a bit of a conversation. She grew up in this town.
even though she'd been away and then she'd come back. And so she had really deep roots with the area as well. And we just went, we can't let this happen. And I said, can you help me? And she said, yep, let's do it. So I basically just said to him, I'll do it. I'll do it. And the first response was, well, you can't, you're a nurse. And I said, well, yes, I can. And, you know, looked at all the legalities and stuff behind it. And so I really have a lot to thank him for because without
him giving me that opportunity and basically giving it, you know, I had to pay for it, but giving it to me basically on goodwill. That was the start of it. And when we started, basically, he stayed on for a while, but I basically had two part-time GPs, myself as the nurse and a receptionist. And that was it. And we were on the back of COVID. So I had been injecting
Trudi Cowan (20:10.431)
and
Haley Hodgson (20:32.308)
between 150 and 300 people a day doing COVID jabs up in the clinic. So we had a bit of momentum from that, but I found very quickly that I couldn't actually do that as well as move forward with the business. So I kind of merged a bit and we started recruiting and doing different things and found out really quickly that we outgrown the building.
Trudi Cowan (20:35.406)
Yeah.
Haley Hodgson (20:58.537)
really, really quickly. Like I think it was probably three or four months on, I was looking at this thinking, we're not gonna fit in here with the vision that I have. And my vision was simply just to be able to provide accessible services to the community. Like why should we miss out because those people, and you know, cause we don't live in the city essentially. So, so yeah, we started looking around and it was really difficult. We'd come up with lots of challenges with the local council because we couldn't,
Sarah Eifermann (21:18.06)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Haley Hodgson (21:28.289)
occupy any properties anywhere. There was no room for growth because the town was an older town on the side of a hill and so there was nowhere to go. Even looking at buying property out of just slightly out of town but that wasn't zoned appropriately because we were a medical centre. Had we have not been a medical centre, if I was a
Sarah Eifermann (21:36.919)
Yep.
Sarah Eifermann (21:52.275)
If you'd brothel, you would have been fine. That's the R1 zoning here.
Haley Hodgson (21:55.713)
absolutely. Absolutely. if I was a yep, yep. And if I was a single practitioner, not a problem. So I, you know, I had had many conversations with the mayor at the time and the town planners and our local members. So I did have lots of conversation about this thing. You know, we want to move forward. What are we going to do? Luckily, just
Trudi Cowan (21:56.814)
Yarny.
Haley Hodgson (22:21.749)
By chance we had a friend of mine who's in real estate said, have you looked at the block of land down the street that's owned by Andrew? And he said, do you know Andrew? I'll put you in touch with Andrew. And I went, I actually played netball with his wife.
Sarah Eifermann (22:37.826)
we forgot to mention earlier, Hailey's also the president of the McLean Netball Club. So there's just a whole added task that she does on top of everything else. So netball is also a very big part of her life.
Haley Hodgson (22:39.713)
you
Haley Hodgson (22:43.419)
yes.
Haley Hodgson (22:47.039)
Yeah, just something I do in my spare time. Absolutely. It's my chance to give back to the community my netball stuff. my kids are up and coming netballers and it's yeah, absolutely my chance to give back to the community. So yeah, that's how we got in contact. Yeah, spoke to Andrew. He had a block of land that he was doing nothing with. He'd had a...
Sarah Eifermann (23:03.476)
Yeah, so you spoke to Andrew. Yeah, and so he
Haley Hodgson (23:15.179)
had issues with council as well and was gonna recreate what was there. I believe it was a restaurant before it burnt down in previous years. Yeah, yep.
Sarah Eifermann (23:22.01)
It was the old boulevard restaurant by the strip is also known as the boulevard and there was unfortunately it was a beautiful heritage building and there was a really unfortunate fire in the premises up above the sorry the restaurant was at the top with the balcony and below was a house and they put some toast in the toaster and went to the shop to spar to get
Haley Hodgson (23:29.588)
Yeah.
Sarah Eifermann (23:48.355)
some milk and came back and the toast had set the curtains on fire because it was an old wooden building. It just went up like a matchbox. yeah, it was a big shame from that point of view. So, but yeah, so you've now got, did you say 27 room the other day? It's gone up. So I thought it was 24, but maybe it is 27 room medical center.
Haley Hodgson (23:54.678)
Yep.
Yep. Yep.
Haley Hodgson (24:03.604)
Absolutely.
Haley Hodgson (24:12.321)
20. Yeah, it's, what is it? I think it's 24, 27. I can't remember because it's just so much going on with it. But we do have a few other rooms as well in there. Like we've got an education room and, you know, like multi, some multi-use rooms. So I think it was originally 24, but I've kind of converted rooms that were going to be offices into other consult rooms as well now. So yeah, I think it's 27 spaces in total.
Sarah Eifermann (24:25.132)
Yeah.
Sarah Eifermann (24:36.578)
Yeah, so to confirm how you
Haley is building in conjunction with a local builder, a mega or a super medical center in our town that's privately owned, not run by a corporate, but run by somebody that lives in our community. And that is a huge win for our community. And it's a testament to who she is and what she believes in. And I think it's fantastic that we are underway with that. It's still nine months away, six, months away at the minimum, but it's coming and that's.
Haley Hodgson (25:06.997)
Yeah.
Sarah Eifermann (25:08.95)
That's amazing. But you also forgot the middle part where you created Kokora in between.
Haley Hodgson (25:14.209)
Hi, yeah, credit Cacorra in there. I had a few staff that were a bit into injectables, wanting to stay nice and youthful, I think. So that's how that come about. And I'm always up for, yeah, I'll give it a go. So I went and did all my training for all the cosmetic nursing side of stuff. And that's how Cacorra was kind of.
Trudi Cowan (25:33.21)
Thank
Haley Hodgson (25:39.329)
formed because we decided to do, I think it's the Italian in me, I was a bit concerned about the, you know, that menopausal hair growth that was probably going to happen at some stage and decided to get into some laser hair removal and various other things. So that's how Kokora kind of, and we just couldn't fit it in the building up above and the local vet had obviously built a beautiful brand new facility and the building was available. So
we were watching it with interest for many months and just because it was straight across the road from us. So moved down there and started running Kokora aesthetics, which has now merged back into McLean Medical.
Sarah Eifermann (26:07.553)
Yeah.
Sarah Eifermann (26:22.176)
Yeah. So it's still a facility that you're leasing at the moment where you are currently right now. And the services are available. It's just not really running as a day spa operation anymore. It's more running as an access health clinic and a medical center.
Haley Hodgson (26:26.973)
absolutely.
Haley Hodgson (26:38.047)
Yeah, definitely the Access Health Clinic as part of my vision, it was just something that I've always wanted to do. And I think that was exacerbated because I had a medical incident myself last year where I took myself to hospital knowing I self-diagnosing as nurses do as either a bowel obstruction.
or gallstones, I wasn't quite sure what it was, but I knew that I was really, really unwell and that unfortunately it wasn't something I could sort out myself. When I went to the hospital, I turned up, it was a rainy, miserable day, I walked in the waiting room and I was so, so sick and I walked in and the waiting room was absolutely choppers. And when I'm in there, although I'm a bit compass-men, you know, like I wasn't quite all there, I could actually see that half the room were patients of ours.
And they all looked well. Like I was so unwell, they all looked well. When I got taken through, I didn't come back out again, but while I was waiting to go in and get triaged, people were coming back out and I heard them saying, there was a combination of things that I heard them talking about. A, they couldn't get an appointment to see the doctor and B, they couldn't afford to go and see the doctor. So they were waiting in the ED waiting room. So that kind of really
It really got to me and I was like, can do this so better. We can do it so better. So I've been plotting behind the scenes. Yes.
Sarah Eifermann (28:09.25)
While she's in severe excruciating pain, in excruciating pain she was thinking of her next business idea.
Haley Hodgson (28:17.624)
Absolutely, absolutely. I just didn't know how it was going to work because the thing is, you know, you've got to get you've got to get remunerated for what you do. You've got to pay rent and you've got to pay staff and you've to feed your family.
Sarah Eifermann (28:36.226)
Unfortunately, the Medicare rebate isn't doing what it once did. It hasn't changed much in 30 years.
Haley Hodgson (28:42.497)
No, no. And we had a massive shortage of GPs and struggle for everyone trying to recruit GPs. So in my brain I'm like, how am I doing this? So that was kind of my motivation to doing my nurse practitioners because I could see it was time. I had been encouraged to do it many times over the past years, but I just, it wasn't ready for me because I don't like to be boxed into stuff.
Sarah Eifermann (28:58.22)
Mm-hmm.
Haley Hodgson (29:11.059)
And I felt like becoming a nurse practitioner at that time was very, I was very boxed into what I could do. And I felt that I would be frustrated, but it kind of had got to the point where I could actually see that it was moving in the right direction for me to be able to be creative and independent. And I could also say they had already announced that we were able to work independently of GPs. Of course, we still need to rely on them for many things, but you know,
Paving the way, these trailblazer nurse practitioners that have put up with absolute hell for the last 10, 15 years have done such an amazing job making their reputation just foolproof that the people that need to that can see that there is a future for nurse practitioners has finally come here. And every time Medicare doesn't update or the PBS doesn't update,
someone does an update now, you can see that there's more positive steps for nurse practitioners with what they're allowed to prescribe, what they're allowed to order, what they're allowed to do. So the timing, the timing become right for me. And I was really fortunate in my putting it out there because obviously I try and take as many opportunities as I can when I meet new people to have conversations about stuff, because you just never know who you're going to grab hold of. And CAS,
Sarah Eifermann (30:31.084)
Mm-hmm.
Haley Hodgson (30:35.019)
come about and she wasn't interested, but she was happy to have a conversation. She was happy with what she was doing. And I rang her one night and we were on the phone for two and a half hours. And at the end of that conversation, she said, I'm in. And all of a sudden I went, okay, right, we can do this now. It's time. It's time to do it. And that's what we did. And here we are. The Access Health Clinic is absolutely the most wonderful thing that
Sarah Eifermann (30:58.55)
Yeah.
Haley Hodgson (31:03.905)
I think I've ever done in my life. I'm so proud of it. I'm so proud of the team. Cassie does an amazing job. I'm so proud of what it's able to achieve for the community. So in all of my crowning glory of all the things that I've done over the years, that is my thing that I feel like, other than being a mum, of course, I feel like that's the one thing that I can kind of look back and go.
This is something I've done that's made a difference.
Sarah Eifermann (31:34.531)
Yeah, well, you're stealing our questions. So thank you very much for that in the meantime. But that's so fantastic that, you know, a lot of people, a lot of people feel lost and they strive for legacy, but you're actually living your legacy every day. And that in itself is beyond inspiring. And for those that are listening, like it really is the motivation if you've been considering something, but you haven't quite gotten there yet. Haley's really giving you no excuse not to.
Trudi Cowan (31:37.091)
Hahaha!
Haley Hodgson (31:37.451)
Sorry, sorry.
Trudi Cowan (32:02.588)
Laughter
Haley Hodgson (32:02.779)
Hahaha!
Sarah Eifermann (32:02.866)
So get out and do it, absolutely. What challenges have you had though, other than the medical side of it? Obviously you're a transitioning nurse practitioner, so you haven't, you're not able to do what Cass is able to do yet, right? So you've needed to rely on other people to facilitate, but that is the definition of perfect outsourcing.
Haley Hodgson (32:25.765)
absolutely. So I 100 % could not have done this without the people around me. They've given me the freedom as well, but I've been really lucky. Well, look, challenges, even with my nurse practitioner, if we go back a step, I had a challenge getting accepted into the nurse practitioner program because not because of my clinical experience, that wasn't the issue. The issue was where I was going to do my practical components. So
Sarah Eifermann (32:31.638)
Mm-hmm.
Haley Hodgson (32:54.591)
Because I'm a business owner, and I won't point out any universities because again, this is just, still in that old school, that old school way of thinking. I couldn't do it because there was a conflict of interest with me being able to do my hours in the business that I work at. Now, the next challenge that I had was who's going to take me on because there's no financial benefit for any other GP clinic for me to go and work with them.
Trudi Cowan (33:08.538)
Yeah.
Haley Hodgson (33:24.949)
to do the hours and I think it's 300 hours. So it's not a small amount of hours. And so there's no financial incentive. Doctors get a financial incentive for having registrars, medical students, all sorts of stuff to allow them to do that. But for nurse practitioners, there is no financial incentive whatsoever. Even for us having nursing students, there's no financial incentive. But we don't do it for that reason. We do it because we want
you know, people need to progress and they need to learn and they need to have opportunity. So that was a challenge on its own. And then I managed. Oh, 100 % 100%. So yeah, yeah. So I managed to find a university that was able to accept myself doing that. And that was after having phone calls to the nursing and the with free broad and to opera.
Sarah Eifermann (33:58.123)
Yeah, you're also future-proofing your staffing.
Sarah Eifermann (34:03.67)
As I say, yeah, yeah.
Haley Hodgson (34:22.369)
to have conversations about them saying, this going to impact my endorsement when I go to apply for endorsement? And they absolutely said, there is absolutely no way that affects your endorsement or opportunity whatsoever. So that's when I really pushed and pushed and pushed. So even being accepted into the nurse practitioner program was a challenge on its own and months and months and months of really hard work to even get in there. It's not something, I mean, there's a lot of nurse, younger nurses coming through that are aspiring to be a nurse practitioner.
before they've even become a nurse. And I wish they actually realized how challenging the process actually is. It's a really difficult, challenging process. And over 50 % of nurse practitioners that have done their training then fail the endorsement process. So it's that rigorous now that there's a lot of...
Sarah Eifermann (35:11.778)
Jesus.
Haley Hodgson (35:18.811)
irons in the fire. So I have absolutely done way more than I've needed to because I am adamant that I need to pass my endorsement. I'm happy with my clinical stuff. I'm very happy with my hands on stuff, but it's the other stuff that I'm doing that takes all my time. doing stuff with acne and trying to develop capability among nurses.
and empowering them and running nurse led clinics because going back to challenges, there is no financial incentives for nurses. So we run clinics, we don't get remunerated at all. And if you've got GPs and you're working alongside the GPs, the GPs get remunerated for the nurses, the work that the nurses do because it has to get built out to the GPs. So they've all been challenges that I've had to...
Trudi Cowan (36:08.301)
Yeah.
Haley Hodgson (36:13.963)
kind of tick off, but I know that all of those challenges will help with leading to my endorsement as well.
Sarah Eifermann (36:21.76)
Yeah, well, I mean, I think you've got clear example of that it can be done and you can really drive home that new way of thinking of doing things. You know, I've been working with Haley on some lending and some of the things that she's been talking about now about the traditional way of doing things in medicine is still a problem in lending because they still perceive it the same way. And I really think that
Haley Hodgson (36:44.353)
you
Sarah Eifermann (36:48.47)
You know, you will be trailblazing this pathway as a business owner nurse practitioner in a way that's unseen in the rest of Australia as well. So definitely watch this space for those people that are listening. Keep tabs on Hayley from McLean Medical to see where she's going in that sense. But Trudy, did you have any particular questions that you were keen to ask Hayley?
Trudi Cowan (37:09.242)
So I guess along your pathway, I'm sure you've received lots of advice from many different people. What's some of the advice that you've ignored?
Sarah Eifermann (37:14.28)
Yeah.
Haley Hodgson (37:21.665)
I've probably ignored most of it because most of the advice has been that you can't do it. So if I'm being really honest, that's probably been most of the most of the advice has been not hasn't been negative, but it's been it can't be done. You can't you can't do this. Like, you know, even some of my most trusted confidence that that's been you know, you can't do this. So I kind of gone.
Trudi Cowan (37:27.163)
Yeah, okay.
Haley Hodgson (37:48.523)
Well, bugger you, yes I can. I don't say that to them. It's when someone's pregnant and everyone wants to give you advice about how to be a mom and what to do with the baby. And you just listen and be thankful, but then you just do your own thing when the time comes. So it's been a little bit like that.
Sarah Eifermann (38:07.894)
Yeah, yeah. This is why Hayley and I get along because I am the same type of personality where it can't be done. Says whom? Says whom? Prove to me why it can't be done. Let's get it done. Yeah.
Haley Hodgson (38:13.857)
You
Trudi Cowan (38:14.532)
Hahaha!
Haley Hodgson (38:20.149)
I do have my moments, I do have my moments, and then you have the likes of Sarah that says exactly what she just said and then I go, yeah, that's right.
Sarah Eifermann (38:28.768)
Yeah. Even last night I put my foot in her butt and she's like, I won't do that anymore. was like, yes, you will. Own it. Like what the hell? You got to have the right people around. you know, I mean, a lot of the stuff that you have done are really risky decisions in the, the caliber of what we've been talking about in the terms of it. People have told you don't do it. You may not be traditionally within the traditional model of that business in this sense in Australia.
Haley Hodgson (38:39.553)
you
Sarah Eifermann (38:58.466)
the right person or the approved person shall we say. It's not that legally you can't do it because there's no rules that prevent you from do it but what's probably the riskiest decision that you've made?
Haley Hodgson (39:10.785)
A risky decision is probably around money because I did have to take out some finance to be able to buy equipment to actually expand. And because I was a new business and I had no financial background, even though was an existing business, but that's another story. We won't get into that.
Sarah Eifermann (39:25.1)
Yeah.
Sarah Eifermann (39:33.922)
You
Haley Hodgson (39:35.105)
There was nothing. So I had to wait my time to be able to show any profit and loss and any of that sort of stuff. So I had to take out some high interest loans to start off with and, you know, put my house on the line and all of that sort of stuff to move forward. And it's just a risk that I was prepared to take because without doing that, I couldn't have expanded into those different areas that I...
Sarah Eifermann (39:41.868)
Yeah.
Haley Hodgson (40:04.001)
that I needed to and I'm still doing that. Just now I actually can get better quality loans. Yep. And you know, I've put on some of the other risks, you know, not talking about money, but I guess it is money, it's staff, you know, like taking that gamble with putting on staff in different areas and some have paid off and some haven't. But I'm a bit of a, let's just run with it and give it a go and.
Trudi Cowan (40:10.083)
Hahaha
Sarah Eifermann (40:11.722)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah.
Trudi Cowan (40:14.5)
I just have some sweets, but I'm very full.
Haley Hodgson (40:32.649)
I kind of wing it and if it doesn't work, I see where I can fix it. And if I can't fix it, then we move on from that and go, yep, well, we gave that a go. It didn't work.
Sarah Eifermann (40:43.244)
How many staff have you got now? What's your staff load?
Haley Hodgson (40:47.873)
Well, I've got about, I think I've got 18 staff. They're not all, doctors are contractors. So the contractors, we don't include a staff, but you know, in saying that, I have included them in that count. Yep, absolutely. And look, my staff, they're completely loyal and faithful and amazing. I have absolutely no dramas with recruiting nurses when I need nurses.
Sarah Eifermann (40:54.273)
Yes.
Sarah Eifermann (41:00.47)
head count.
Haley Hodgson (41:16.245)
had no issues recruiting admin staff either for that matter. The only hassle we've had is recruiting doctors obviously for the obvious reason. But my nursing staff, pay them well. I pay them what they would if they worked casual at the local hospital. So that way I know that I'm getting the best quality nurses as well. But in return, I expect that they provide a higher quality service. And they do, they do, they're amazing.
Trudi Cowan (41:24.22) .
Sarah Eifermann (41:31.276)
Mm-hmm.
Trudi Cowan (41:48.838)
So you commented before that you do ignore, I guess, a lot of people's advice because it's not the right advice, but do you have a network around you of people that you can, I guess, go to and bounce ideas off or is it really just mostly coming out of your own brain?
Haley Hodgson (42:03.617)
Lots of stuff comes out of my brain at all kinds of weird and wacky hours. People do get emails off me very often after midnight, very often. I don't expect anyone to reply back to them, but look, I do. Sarah's been great. She's someone that I bounce off. Rachel, who used to work with the local PHN, she's now retired. She was one of my sounding boards as well.
And then obviously Dr. Maxine that I work with, I would be absolutely stupid if I didn't listen to her advice. Doesn't mean I take it, but I definitely listen because she can give so much insight about how things have been in the past. And that's been great for me because I can see what she's done because she's run a big practice out at Morey for 35 years.
Trudi Cowan (42:41.308)
you
Sarah Eifermann (42:50.402)
Mm.
Haley Hodgson (42:58.849)
And that's a similar situation to us, you know, where they've had to struggle to get doctors and bring in specialists and she had lots of everything going on. So I've really learnt a lot from her, but at the same time, I push in different directions that she's not particularly comfortable with me going in, but she knows that that's part of my personality. And so she's supportive of me as my personality.
Sarah Eifermann (43:02.006)
Mm-hmm.
Haley Hodgson (43:26.657)
And obviously my mum's amazing. My mum probably tells me that I'm, she's like my best supporter, but my worst supporter at the same time, if that makes sense. Like what the hell are you doing? Oh, you know, it's like you're 45. Why the hell are you still playing netball? Like for God's sake, Hayley stop. You know, so I get that with, I get that with every decision I make. She's like, what are you doing this for? All the time. But in saying that, I couldn't have, couldn't do it without her.
Trudi Cowan (43:35.532)
That's what mamma's are.
Trudi Cowan (43:43.836)
You
Haley Hodgson (43:55.425)
And then, know, Linda, who's my practice manager, she started off as the receptionist that I used to work with and didn't want to be practice manager because she didn't want to let me down. And she didn't start off as practice manager. We did have a practice manager who I gave trust and freedom to who probably made some poor decisions, which was a good learning curve. I probably do put too much trust in people.
Sarah Eifermann (44:06.028)
Mm.
Haley Hodgson (44:23.645)
if I put them in those positions, because I know that I can't do those things on my own. And I refuse to be that person that micromanages. I like to kind of, you know, you run with this, this is what it is, this is your baby. And so Linda came on board after that experience because she absolutely loves and adores me as I do her and just wanted the best for me. And so she's kind of like the big sister that...
Sarah Eifermann (44:35.243)
Yeah.
Haley Hodgson (44:51.329)
that looks out for me and we're kind of learning as we go and she just, lets me be creative but doesn't let me spend any money. I get in trouble all the time for spending money. So yes, I do have some great people and I've got some really great friends that I can bounce off with different things as well that still kind of work in the space. Maybe not necessarily GP practice, but you know, like they work in the health space as well. So it's great to kind of bounce different things off them. Or we just have a winch about
Sarah Eifermann (44:58.399)
Hahaha
Trudi Cowan (44:58.491)
Hahaha!
Sarah Eifermann (45:02.327)
Yeah.
Haley Hodgson (45:21.109)
what we hate and then we put it all together from there. I yeah, I can do that. Can you do that? Because I'll do this if you do that. And then that kind of works.
Sarah Eifermann (45:31.158)
Yeah. Amazing. So the standard business owner work life balance, what, what, what work life balance like, you know, adage usually applies for high achievers like you. How do you separate out? Is there anything that you do to split work or does it just merge it? We should also say that Haley is still, is still studying her second masters right now as well. So.
Haley Hodgson (45:55.723)
Yeah, don't actually have hobbies. My hobby is, yeah, it's a hobby, but I work for it as well. But the things I do in life, I love. I love my job and I love my family and I love my netball. I love those things. So although they're all hard work, they're what I do to...
Trudi Cowan (46:00.604)
You find that though? That's a hobby.
Sarah Eifermann (46:03.628)
Yeah.
Sarah Eifermann (46:12.588)
Hmm.
Haley Hodgson (46:25.183)
You know, they're what I do, they're my hobbies. I'm happy to do them 24 seven. And my biggest thing in life is my children. Like I grew up and my parents really, really struggled. You know, we grew up in the eighties when money was tight and things were a struggle and you went without. And my biggest detriment, I guess, is I love too much. give too much. I give too much away for nothing. Like even in my job.
I give too much to my own detriment sometimes, but at the end of the day, as long as my children are well provided for, not just now, but into the future, I know that it fulfills me with joy. And I think that's my palliative care background as well. I used to look after people and people say, can you work in palliative care? But I just got so much joy out of spending
Sarah Eifermann (46:55.244)
Mm-hmm.
Haley Hodgson (47:24.885)
the last moments of someone's life with them and their family and making it as, I wouldn't say enjoyable is probably not the word, but as peaceful and as memorable as humanly possible, that that to me was reward on its own, even if it was 24 seven. And I feel that way about my job and studies just a part of that to actually make it more enjoyable.
But if I'm being honest about downtime, I need to regroup, I discovered Netflix not that long ago and I do some serious binging in between things.
Trudi Cowan (48:03.062)
Yeah.
Sarah Eifermann (48:04.874)
Yeah, I mean, it seems, Hayley, like you are the definition of living your passion. And my experiences with you have I've never really heard you angry or mad. Like, yeah, we could you rant, but we all rant. But you are not a melancholy person. Like you seem to be have found a nuanced way to live your passion in every element of your life. And with a caliber that a lot of people
they wish for on their deathbed, which is what you've also experienced rather than live in every single day.
Haley Hodgson (48:39.605)
Yeah, yeah, it didn't happen. It definitely didn't happen overnight, but there was a there was a hard slog and a hard lot of years in between and typical nurses, there was lots of partying and lots of drinking and lots of craziness. And then you kind of find it's not even a balance. I think, you know, some of us, we kind of hit our 40s and kind of find our peace, our peace within ourselves and and
Sarah Eifermann (48:47.394)
Mm-hmm.
Sarah Eifermann (48:53.012)
you
Trudi Cowan (48:53.692)
you
Haley Hodgson (49:07.809)
you know, we learn to know who we are and those things that as a 20 year old you see as detrimental and weaknesses are actually your biggest strengths. And I don't think you really realize that until you kind of hit your forties and you know, you're confident that those weaknesses are what makes you who you are. So, you know.
Sarah Eifermann (49:26.507)
Yeah.
Sarah Eifermann (49:29.992)
Mm-hmm Yeah, you're less trying to prove your worth to other people and more about owning who you are and whatever that looks like Yeah Yeah, we're nearly out of time. It goes very quickly Trudy Do you have any other questions you'd like to ask us? We've got Haley today
Trudi Cowan (49:33.468)
Thank
Haley Hodgson (49:35.765)
Absolutely. Yep, absolutely.
Trudi Cowan (49:44.72)
Well, just maybe maybe just a wrap up sort of question. If you could give people that listening to this episode, I guess, one thought to carry with them into their own challenges, what would it be?
Haley Hodgson (49:58.129)
I think I would say probably back yourself, be confident in your decisions. And, you know, I haven't actually sworn once, which is really good for me. But, you know, if you, if you bugger up, it's okay. It's okay. You know, coming from someone who, you know, I had a unfortunate marriage bust up in my early thirties. And at the time I felt like my whole world was going to fall apart.
Trudi Cowan (50:09.116)
Yeah
Haley Hodgson (50:28.417)
And my mum said to me, the best thing that you can learn to do is be comfortable on your own and be good on your own and with yourself and in your own company. And that's the best bit of advice, honestly, that anyone's ever given me because that gave me the freedom to accept who I am and not take any shit from anybody basically. So.
If I, if I bugger up, I acknowledge that it's, you know, I don't live life with regrets. It's part of learning and part of growing. And the thing is you don't stop growing. It matter how old you are. You're constantly reinventing yourself and you're growing. And if we don't make changes along the way, we get stuck in a rut. So you do it's like anything. You evaluate your performance when you do things and look at what you can do better to improve.
if you're faced with that situation again, how would you do it better? So that's probably my advice to people. It doesn't matter if you bugger up. It's all part of learning and self-growth. And we're growing until the day that we literally are six foot under. Like it's just part of life.
Sarah Eifermann (51:45.484)
Yeah.
Yeah, I was gonna say and learning to Phoenix faster. So fail quickly and then reinvent faster. And a lot of people get stuck in the failure more in the re and not and not in the reinvention. That's where the real power is, is in the reinvention.
Haley Hodgson (51:53.941)
Yeah.
Haley Hodgson (51:59.221)
Yep. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Sarah Eifermann (52:02.924)
So one last question, what's next for you? What's coming?
Haley Hodgson (52:08.447)
Well, I've injected a lot of things in over the last few months. So obviously the Access Health Clinic, we've injected Weight Loss Clinic. We've now put in a Stelio skin cancer detection machine so that people don't have to travel any longer to the Gold Coast. So I've kind of put, and the Women's Health Clinic. So I've kind of put a whole heap of stuff in.
in play over the next few months so that I can kind of let them grow and, you know, draw their own little pathway. I'm just starting my, I'm just finishing my diabetes credentialing and starting the last part of my nurse practitioner masters. So my focus, I guess, is over the next 12 months is exactly that. And obviously building the medical center and all the little bits and pieces that we've got that are going with that.
Sarah Eifermann (53:05.974)
Mm-hmm.
Haley Hodgson (53:07.492)
That's probably it. I think I probably need to have a holiday but holiday... I don't know if I've got time for a holiday to be honest. That'd be nice but wouldn't it?
Trudi Cowan (53:14.785)
Hahaha
Sarah Eifermann (53:17.004)
Couple days here and there will not go astray for you, I think.
Trudi Cowan (53:18.405)
Yep.
Haley Hodgson (53:20.001)
My holiday, yeah, three or four days. That's a reboot. But yeah, look, after, think really it's just for the next five years, it's just building on all the hard work we put in the first three years. It's finally got to a point where, you know, I feel like we've come on, you know, we're just coming over the hill now and we're on that downhill slide. So it's really just cementing all of that stuff in and letting it.
you know, go hard and enjoy the ride.
Sarah Eifermann (53:56.355)
It's so exciting to hear you're a breath of fresh air. We have had an absolute pleasure talking to you today. Congratulations again on your wins. They've been fantastic. And they are really are a testament of really where you're starting, not where you'll finish. Have absolute faith in your capacity to smash the goals that you set for yourself and really deliver beneficial outcomes and leave that legacy that you've been talking about.
Trudi Cowan (53:56.368)
Thank
Sarah Eifermann (54:22.646)
But we are out of time for today, so thank you for joining us, Hailey. It's been an absolute pleasure.
Sarah Eifermann (54:37.206)
Can you hear us still, Hallie?
Haley Hodgson (54:40.103)
I can't, you just dropped out. missed that last little bit. I'm like, are you talking or are not?
Sarah Eifermann (54:41.858)
I just said it was an absolute pleasure having you today and I have no doubt you're going to smash all the...
Haley Hodgson (54:48.382)
I've lost you again. It's taken 54 minutes but we've seemed to have lost connection at the end.
Sarah Eifermann (54:53.09)
That's okay. We can wrap it up and we will no doubt watch this space as to things to come for you.
Haley Hodgson (55:03.517)
Awesome, thank you so much for your time guys, it's been amazing.
Sarah Eifermann (55:07.785)
Lovely. Cheers everybody.