The pres­ti­gious Auro­ra Award was ini­ti­at­ed by CRANAplus to recog­nise indi­vid­u­als who have made an out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tion to remote health. This year’s recip­i­ent, Susan Mark­well, was no excep­tion and is an inspi­ra­tion and leader in her field. Con­grat­u­la­tions Susan!

Susan is a flight nurse employed by the Roy­al Fly­ing Doc­tor Ser­vice, Queens­land Sec­tion. Com­menc­ing her career over 28 years ago, as the only flight nurse based in Charleville, she relo­cat­ed to Cairns in the 1990s as the senior flight nurse to lead the nurs­ing team in the pro­vi­sion of pri­ma­ry health care and aeromed­ical retrievals. 

Susan is con­sid­ered by her col­leagues and peers as a shin­ing light, a pro­fes­sion­al role mod­el with­in remote health practice. 

Well recog­nised for her astute­ness and knowl­edge of the local ser­vice area, the peo­ple who reside there, as well as the com­mu­ni­ties RFDS serve.

She is well loved by her col­leagues and patients and con­tin­ues her work with great pas­sion, dri­ve and clin­i­cal excel­lence to pro­vide the high­est stan­dard of patient care.

She works close­ly with the peo­ple of the Cape and north-west­ern com­mu­ni­ties in pri­ma­ry health care, mater­ni­ty ser­vices and emer­gency work and is high­ly-respect­ed, extreme­ly knowl­edge­able, an excel­lent team play­er and an expe­ri­enced clin­i­cian. In addi­tion, Susan man­ages an enor­mous work­load and inspires great team­work and team building.

Susan is known for her gen­eros­i­ty of spir­it and zest for men­tor­ing of flight nurs­es, med­ical offi­cers, RANs and allied health professionals.

She is a strong advo­cate for build­ing the capa­bil­i­ties of Abo­rig­i­nal and Tor­res Strait Islander Health Work­ers through men­tor­ing, edu­ca­tion and training.

The tena­cious­ness Susan pos­sess­es is char­ac­terised by her com­mit­ment, pas­sion and ener­gy, from dri­ving excel­lence in clin­i­cal care to lead­ing high-per­form­ing teams, embrac­ing change through state and nation­al health care pro­grams, ini­tia­tives and projects. In addi­tion, she is an active par­tic­i­pant in RFDS forums
and meet­ings for child health, mater­ni­ty and emer­gency ser­vices at a local lev­el with­in the Cairns health district.

As a high­ly-devel­oped leader and a pro­fes­sion­al role mod­el with­in RFDS and broad­er nurs­ing pro­fes­sion, Susan is a dynam­ic woman who walks the talk, an out­stand­ing shin­ing light for remote and iso­lat­ed health care prac­tice and a deserved win­ner of the 2019 CRANAplus Auro­ra Award.

Excel­lence in Remote Health Prac­tice Win­ner: Johan­na Neville 

Spon­sored by: James Cook Uni­ver­si­ty – Rur­al and Remote Health

Johan­na is a strong advo­cate for remote com­mu­ni­ties and the right of indi­vid­u­als to access qual­i­ty pri­ma­ry health care and pop­u­la­tion health services.

Johan­na is a Reg­is­tered Nurse and Mid­wife employed by Apunip­i­ma Cape York Health Coun­cil. As a pro­gram advi­sor for mater­nal and child health, she pro­vides pro­fes­sion­al lead­er­ship, strate­gic direc­tion and clin­i­cal guid­ance to mater­nal and child health staff who deliv­er pri­ma­ry health care ser­vices to 11 remote Abo­rig­i­nal and Tor­res Strait Islander com­mu­ni­ties in Cape York. In 1993 Johan­na became a Reg­is­tered Nurse and, as an ear­ly career nurse, was drawn to rur­al, remote and iso­lat­ed posts which broad­ened her expe­ri­ences and expertise.

Excel­lence in Research in Remote Health Win­ner: Katie Pen­ning­ton

Spon­sored by: Cen­tre for Remote Health

Katie has led a crit­i­cal research project ​‘Reg­is­tered nurs­es in very remote Aus­tralia, med­i­cines and the law’, inves­ti­gat­ing the impact that cur­rent med­i­cines and poi­sons leg­is­la­tion has on the abil­i­ty of reg­is­tered nurs­es to pro­vide health care in the very remote and iso­lat­ed con­text.

Katie is a Reg­is­tered Nurse, researcher who cur­rent­ly works with Pun­turkunu Abo­rig­i­nal Med­ical Ser­vice in West­ern Aus­tralia where her role is focused on improv­ing clin­i­cal sys­tems, clin­i­cal gov­er­nance and sup­port for clin­i­cians.

As well, Katie works a tad clos­er to home at St Helens Dis­trict Hos­pi­tal in Tas­ma­nia.

Katie’s first expo­sure to remote and iso­lat­ed health care prac­tice occurred in the late 1990s and ear­ly 2000s dur­ing her time as a medic in the Aus­tralian Defence Force (ADF).

Since leav­ing the ADF and becom­ing a Reg­is­tered Nurse in 2005, Katie has worked pre­dom­i­nant­ly in rur­al and remote loca­tions in West­ern Aus­tralia with Inter­na­tion­al Health and Med­ical Ser­vices in deten­tion health, and in South Aus­tralia with SAHM­RI Wardli­par­ing­ga Abo­rig­i­nal Research Unit.

Out­stand­ing Novice/​Encouragement Win­ner: Tiffany Callanan

Spon­sored by: Remote Area Health Corp

As an ear­ly career Reg­is­tered Nurse, Tiffany con­tin­ues to strive for excel­lence through pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment, and is con­sid­er­ing under­tak­ing fur­ther qual­i­fi­ca­tions and CRANAplus’ remote emer­gency and mater­ni­ty emer­gency cours­es in the near future.

Tiffany began her nurs­ing career in aged care. In 2017 she com­plet­ed a Bach­e­lor of Nurs­ing at Charles Sturt Uni­ver­si­ty. In 2018 she entered a grad­u­ate nurse pro­gram and under­took remote place­ment at Porm­pu­raaw Pri­ma­ry Health Care Clin­ic in the west coast of Gulf Car­pen­taria, where she remains as the clin­i­cal nurse.