The 2026 Cabrini Australia nurses and midwives graduate cohort is the largest in the Program’s history. It also contains more Cabrini DNA than any cohort that’s come before it. Forty-one graduates were blessed before a large crowd of family, friends and colleagues in the Chapel on Monday 27 April, taking the total number of 2026 graduates to 90.

Among Monday’s group were graduate midwife Ashleigh Thomson, daughter of Cabrini Infection Prevention and Control Service Manager Kirsty Thomson, Alana Hadjiloukas, daughter of IT Applications Manager Libby Hadjiloukas, and Joseph Melendres, husband of fellow graduate nurse Andrea Melendres, who started the grad program in February.

Joseph has worked in Medical Imaging at Cabrini Malvern for 12 years, and his wife Andrea has worked here as a PCA and before that in Domestic Services for the past six years, but both had been nurses overseas early in their careers. It’s been a juggle for the new grads, but one they’ve been happy to do.

“Andrea encouraged me to retrain in nursing at the same time that she decided to re-train,” Joseph said. “So, the past couple of years have been very busy for us with us both studying and working and raising our two children.

Monday was a full circle moment for Alana, whose two grandmothers were also nurses. When Libby was pregnant with her, Libby’s Cabrini boss was Viv Niteros, who would later become Alana’s boss when she started work in Cabrini Patient Services five years ago. Despite loving her Cabrini administration role, Alana realised nursing was for her.

“Working in a clerical role here, I’ve had some amazing mentors who’ve given me a huge bible of Cabrini knowledge,” she said. “So rather than choosing somewhere else to do my grad year, I wanted it to be Cabrini because I really feel like Cabrini is home.”

“Cabrini sold itself,” Ashleigh said. “I hadn’t really considered Cabrini, but Mum spoke so highly about it, about the culture and how welcoming everyone is, and so I came to the open day and that completely changed my perspective on what I wanted.

“And now I’m here, Mum was right and my first impression was right. We’ve felt very nurtured and the graduate program team has really emphasized that Cabrini wants to invest in us – that we’re Cabrini’s future.”