She took on the small business in Eastwood during a four-year sabbatical from nursing and found the qualities imbued through nursing had held her in good stead.

"The delicatessen was quite successful and I think the reason for that is because people have a level of respect and trust in nurses," she said.

"So once your customers know you're a nurse, they know that you're going to be honest and trustworthy; that you've got good hygiene standards and it was a pretty exciting thing to do but hard work."

Ms Croome ended up selling the business and happily returning to nursing.

She retires from the profession on Friday after 43 years as a nurse, the last almost nine years as the ACT's Chief Nurse, providing leadership to nurses and midwives in Canberra; advising the minister and director-general and sitting on committees to foster the calling.

"It's about ensuring standards are maintained. That nurses and midwives are professional. That they understand their roles and operate within their scope of practice," she said of her role.

And as walks around the Canberra Hospital during her final week, Ms Croome, 63, is regularly stopped by colleagues who want to give her a hug and wish her all the best.

"I find that if you treat people in the way that you would like to be treated yourself, then you are respected and you respect others. That's how I've lived my nursing career," she said.

"And because of that, I think I've made many, many friends in the nursing profession."

Born in Sydney, Ms Croome considered being a journalist or school teacher, like her father, before deciding on nursing, starting her training at age 18 at the Royal North Shore Hospital. She was from a family of five girls including two sets of twins. She is one of the pair and her twin sister is also a nurse.

"It's a long career but I remember my training days as if they were only yesterday. They were fantastic times," she said.

"The collegiality that you had as a student nurse was fantastic. All the things we used to get up to, mischief-making in the nurses' home. It was all great fun."

She worked in intensive care and managed open-heart surgical units. Known for her sense of humour, Ms Croome remembers the large number of Italian patients she cared for at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.

"I had an Italian ward clerk and she taught me a couple of stock phrases in Italian and when I would say them to the patients coming out of anesthetic, they just couldn't believe that I was speaking their language to them," she said.

"What I would actually say to them was, 'Hello. How are you? You've got a nice face, lovely legs, gorgeous shoes and I'll see you tomorrow'. So it was completely inappropriate but they nonetheless liked that I could converse with them in Italian."

Ms Croome has, so far, been the ACT's longest-serving chief nurse.

"I've enjoyed making a difference to the lives of people who are very vulnerable," she said.

"When they come into hospital, they often at their lowest ebb and the fact you're there for them to support them and care for them and make that little bit of difference, I think is the greatest privilege that anyone could have."

She intends in retirement to stay in Canberra, join a gym, learn to ride a pushbike and promote palliative care services in the Southern Highlands after the recent death of her sister who lived in Bowral.

"I'm nervous about retiring and establishing a new identity after the busy professional life and profile that I've had, it will be a challenge. I'm sad to be leaving, after so many years in the nursing profession, leaving is difficult. But there is some excitement. Every day will be a Friday afternoon for me," she said.

Ms Croome said she believed the nursing and midwifery professions in the ACT were in good shape for the future.

"We have an affordable and a sustainable nursing and midwifery workforce. We have many more newly-graduated nurses applying for the positions, so there's a bit of competition happening," she said.

"There are a lot of nurses like me who are retiring or thinking about retiring and we've got to make sure we have a succession plan in place to ensure there are enough nurses and midwives to take the place of those who are retiring. Not only is about them leaving but the corporate knowledge they take with them.

"So we invest very heavily in our newly-graduated nurses and I think we prepare them well for the future."