CRANAcast

Wel­come to CRANAcast, the remote health pod­cast pro­duced by CRANAplus.

This pod­cast is all about telling the sto­ries of the remote health work­force. Every episode, a nurse, mid­wife, or health pro­fes­sion­al comes onto the show to share their expe­ri­ences of work­ing in rur­al and remote Australia.

CRANAcast is designed for you to lis­ten to on the plane, in the car between clin­ics, or dur­ing your down­time. Down­load it on Apple Pod­casts, Spo­ti­fy or your favourite pod­cast app so you can tune in even when you’re out of range.

Lis­ten on Spo­ti­fy | Lis­ten on Apple Pod­casts | Lis­ten on Google Podcasts

A nurse for over 37 years, Sue was among the first group of remote area nurs­es to receive uni­ver­si­ty-based train­ing. In our first episode of CRANAcast, she reflects on work­ing remote while bring­ing up her baby; that one time the food truck deliv­ered quail; cut­ting her own hair; and ​“becom­ing so lais­sez-faire about every­thing, when you final­ly come to town, it’s a total­ly dif­fer­ent pace and exis­tence.” She also shares her thoughts on con­tin­u­ous upskilling, adjust­ing your expec­ta­tions, and the impact of tragedy in tight-knit communities.

RAN Shel­ley talks about her six years of remote prac­tice to date, since leav­ing the urban ICU/​emergency rat race. She talks about learn­ing to suture and plas­ter cast, sup­port­ing a man return­ing from jail to regain his place in com­mu­ni­ty, the val­ue of liv­ing with her part­ner, and becom­ing a ​“vault” of local com­mu­ni­ty knowl­edge. She also touch­es on see­ing peo­ple from the clin­ic out­side of work, the work­load call­ing for ​“2 or 3 of me”, and going with­out TV for sev­er­al weeks when the TV breaks down.

RNs Rachel and Gaby dis­cuss their clin­i­cal place­ments in Groote Eylandt/​Gove & Ten­nant Creek. Rachel ​“always had this long­ing” to be a remote nurse and has since moved her fam­i­ly from New­cas­tle to Kather­ine; where­as an acci­den­tal oppor­tu­ni­ty led Gaby to wit­ness the need for sup­port where there’s ​“not enough peo­ple doing it”. The duo illu­mi­nate what it’s like to fall in love with ​“patients, sto­ries, cul­ture, every­thing” and explore the unusu­al work­ing con­di­tions of ​“giv­ing depot injec­tions with a lit­ter of pup­pies at your feet”. Plus, they give their tips on the best mobile net­works, pack­ing favourite foods, and nev­er under­es­ti­mat­ing distances.

In a small east East Pil­bara com­mu­ni­ty, eight metres of flood water laps at the clin­ic dri­ve­way. The phone starts ring­ing. At a near­by gold­mine, across the flood­wa­ters, a 50-year-old man is unre­spon­sive. ​“You have to do what you can with what you’ve got,” RN and Nurse Prac­ti­tion­er Chris’ recalls in this wide-rang­ing episode, which also fea­tures: send­ing an injured Joey to the vet via school bus, pack­ing a knife sharp­en­er, swim­ming with man­ta rays, how a busy work envi­ron­ment makes cru­el­ty too easy, and the rela­tion­ship-build­ing ben­e­fits of baking.

A cat­tle sta­tion cook in her youth, Yuwaalaraay woman Dal­las McK­e­own fol­lowed in her moth­er’s foot­steps to become an EN — a move that would even­tu­al­ly lead to her cur­rent posi­tion as CRANAplus’ Exec. Direc­tor of First Peo­ples Strate­gies. In this episode, she dis­cuss­es how her expe­ri­ences have pro­vid­ed moti­va­tion along the way. Observ­ing acute ill­ness at RDH, she decid­ed to ven­ture into the world of pri­ma­ry health care and health pro­mo­tion — where she cam­paigned on pneu­mo­coc­cal, influen­za and smok­ing, expe­ri­enced overt racism, and learned that ​“some­times there’s nobody else but you to pick up what­ev­er comes through the door”.

Lead Clin­i­cal Coor­di­na­tor at RAHC, Jen­nine Laven­der, has been work­ing rur­al since the 80s. Ini­tial­ly, she planned on stay­ing in Nar­ro­gin for 6 months, but after falling in love with a local farmer, she end­ed up work­ing in the same hos­pi­tal for the next 30 years. In 2011, a ​“midlife cri­sis” inspired her to take up a job on Christ­mas Island, kick­start­ing her jour­ney into tru­ly remote areas. Now for RAHC, she helps peo­ple to make the ​“mind shift” from acute care to the busi­ness of ​“help­ing peo­ple find their way to good health”. She also talks about how see­ing peo­ple at their most vul­ner­a­ble can devel­op or threat­en a nurse’s resilience, and what she learned while fish­ing with a vis­it­ing specialist.

Stu­dent nurs­es from West­ern Aus­tralia and mem­bers of WAAL­HI­IBE (West­ern Aus­tralian Allied Health Inter­est­ed in Bush Expe­ri­ence), Kate, Mekay­la and Jas­mine, dis­cuss their clin­i­cal place­ments and first impres­sions of remote nurs­ing. Hear from them on work­ing towns with 10 res­i­dents, ​“pick­ing a hos­pi­tal I’d nev­er heard of before”, approach­ing remote nurs­ing as a ​“city kid”, using the hos­pi­tal land­line to con­tact fam­i­ly, the under­ap­pre­ci­at­ed skill of bed mak­ing, com­mu­ni­ty inte­gra­tion (e.g., coach­ing swim­ming, har­vest­ing), and how place­ments can ​“make you feel con­fi­dent, not scared”.

Episode 8 out on 20 July 2022