CRANAplus has hired three new remote clin­i­cal edu­ca­tors to expand its capac­i­ty to ser­vice grow­ing demand for con­tex­tu­alised edu­ca­tion in the remote set­ting, and to increase its flex­i­bil­i­ty and peo­ple pow­er to deliv­er across states and ter­ri­to­ries dur­ing the pan­dem­ic and into the future.

The new starters will be work­ing on updat­ing exist­ing cours­es to match the lat­est clin­i­cal guide­lines and devel­op­ing new learn­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties based on the needs of the work­force. They’ll be help­ing to coor­di­nate exist­ing and poten­tial­ly new cours­es and to deliv­er them, on the ground as educators.

Nicole Smith, Michelle Price and Leanne Lau­rie were all drawn to the Remote Clin­i­cal Edu­ca­tor role for sim­i­lar rea­sons: they recog­nise the chal­lenges fac­ing health work­ers in rur­al and remote loca­tions, they respect the skills of facil­i­ta­tors, and they val­ue the fact the cours­es are con­tex­tu­alised to remote needs.

All three spoke high­ly of remote health work­ers, point­ing out how cru­cial it is for them to have to have good all-round skills to be able to man­age any sit­u­a­tion that walks in the door, with lim­it­ed med­ical support.

They also felt the face-to-face work­shops were impor­tant for remote health work­ers, pro­vid­ing par­tic­i­pants with net­work­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties, and the chance to debrief with oth­er peo­ple in the same position.

Nicole Smith

Reg­is­tered Nurse and Mid­wife Nicole Smith from Vic­to­ria has a crit­i­cal care back­ground, but has ​“done a bit of every­thing”, hav­ing worked in Queens­land, the NT, NSW and Vic­to­ria in pri­vate and pub­lic hos­pi­tals in both major towns and region­al areas, as a RAN, and with the Roy­al Fly­ing Doc­tor Service.

“I’ve had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to trav­el and work in dif­fer­ent places, see and expe­ri­ence dif­fer­ent things, and, for me, I think that expe­ri­ence has made me a bet­ter nurse and a bet­ter person.”

COVID-19 has pro­vid­ed her a sil­ver lin­ing, which is a big state­ment, con­sid­er­ing she’s spent many months in lock­down in Vic­to­ria.

​“I’ve always want­ed to work for CRANAplus, and I’ve been a facil­i­ta­tor in CRANAplus cours­es in the past,” she says. ​“But I didn’t have the abil­i­ty to be based per­ma­nent­ly in Cairns, Ade­laide or Alice Springs.”

“COVID-19 has encour­aged organ­i­sa­tions to explore how they can be more flex­i­ble and this posi­tion I am in now is per­fect. The best of both worlds – remain­ing in Vic­to­ria, work­ing from home on course mate­ri­als and con­duct­ing the online com­po­nent of cours­es and, where pos­si­ble in the future, attend­ing work­shops in oth­er parts of the coun­try.”

This job also allows Nicole to get her fix of remote Aus­tralia, which she loves.

“I love the red dirt and the blue skies; the red dirt and the blue seas,” she says, point­ing out that it’s also a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to get away from the bus­tle, to tune out.

In late Octo­ber, Nicole had spent her time in the job so far look­ing specif­i­cal­ly at the triage course and help­ing with hybrid cours­es. She is look­ing for­ward to 2022 when she can increas­ing­ly be involved in face-to-face workshops.

“I feel priv­i­leged that I can not only share and pass on my knowl­edge, but gain and improve my knowl­edge from the remark­able work­force that I get to inter­act with.”

Michelle Price

Michelle Price, an Endorsed Mid­wife, said it became evi­dent ear­li­er this year, when she under­took a sec­ond­ment in coun­try WA, how hard it was for her co-work­ers to access qual­i­ty education.

“It was two hours from Perth, not rur­al or remote but cer­tain­ly coun­try, and it made me realise how lucky those in met­ro­pol­i­tan areas are to have edu­ca­tion at their fingertips.”

“It was the role I had been look­ing for,” says Michelle, of the role as a Remote Clin­i­cal Edu­ca­tor for CRANAplus’ Mid­wifery stream.

“Hav­ing been an aca­d­e­m­ic pre­vi­ous­ly in my career, and know­ing how ful­fill­ing teach­ing was, I was keen to be involved.

“The CRANAplus cours­es give face-to-face edu­ca­tion to those in rur­al and remote areas, our front-line health staff… I think it is some­thing spe­cial that CRANAplus offers – face-to-face con­tact with edu­ca­tors and hands-on skill sta­tions to prac­tise life­sav­ing mater­ni­ty skills.”

On top of her teach­ing back­ground, Michelle has worked in all areas of mid­wifery: in mid­wifery group prac­tice, metro, coun­try and ter­tiary hos­pi­tals, pri­vate and pub­lic, as well as pri­vate prac­tice as an Endorsed Midwife.

Michelle’s role at CRANAplus is Remote Edu­ca­tion Coor­di­na­tor for Mater­ni­ty Emer­gency Care and Mid­wifery Upskilling cours­es.

Her role involves work­ing behind the scenes to organ­ise cours­es, but also pre­sent­ing, facil­i­tat­ing, run­ning skills sta­tions, devel­op­ing pow­er points and pre-learn­ing mod­ules, and con­duct­ing assess­ments on the day.

“I learn as much as teach,” says Michelle whose cal­en­dar lead­ing to the end of 2021 has been filled with cours­es in Dar­win, Broome and Adelaide.

“I love teach­ing and have men­tored junior staff since I grad­u­at­ed 15 years ago, and I love pass­ing on the skills I have learned, and impart­ing knowl­edge to deal with sticky situations.”

Such sit­u­a­tions are not new for Michelle who entered the world of mid­wifery when she her­self lost a baby.

“That expe­ri­ence with a won­der­ful mid­wife made me feel this is what I’d like to do,” she says. ​“It’s such an amaz­ing job and I knew I want­ed to do that sort of thing.”

Leanne Lau­rie

Leanne Lau­rie from WA, a child health nurse, mid­wife and nurse prac­ti­tion­er, has been work­ing rur­al and remote all her nurs­ing life. Her first job in 1982 was at Wyn­d­ham, the most north­ern hos­pi­tal in WA – and that expe­ri­ence set her on her nurs­ing pathway.

“Work­ing rur­al and remote you realise the dif­fi­cul­ty of attain­ing edu­ca­tion, being able to attend cours­es,” she says.

​“That’s the beau­ty of CRANAplus, what sets it apart. The cours­es are tak­en into the rur­al and remote work­place, and they’re specif­i­cal­ly designed for peo­ple work­ing out there deal­ing with lim­it­ed resources, lim­it­ed work­force and lim­it­ed edu­ca­tion opportunities.”

Leanne facil­i­tat­ed a few cours­es this year before tak­ing on the role of remote clin­i­cal educator.

“It’s great for edu­ca­tors to get out to these remote areas to be able to talk to the remote health work­ers in their sur­round­ings” says Leanne, who has been busy so far in 2021 in WA, NT and SA and Tasmania.

Ear­ly in the year she facil­i­tat­ed cours­es both in Man­ingri­da and Nhu­lun­buy in Arn­hem Land in the North­ern Ter­ri­to­ry, high­light­ing for her the impor­tance of health and edu­ca­tion in remote Indige­nous communities.

“It’s a priv­i­lege to go into these com­mu­ni­ties and work with the Abo­rig­i­nal Health Work­ers,” she says. ​“They have a real under­stand­ing of what is need­ed in the com­mu­ni­ties. They are able to advo­cate for their com­mu­ni­ties, and the peo­ple in the com­mu­ni­ties have that trust that things are being done for their benefit.”

With short­ages of health work­ers through­outAus­tralia and the huge pres­sures on exist­ing staff to work extra hours and take on addi­tion­al duties, the role of CRANAplus cours­es is more impor­tant than ever, Leanne believes.

“The short­ages are caused by numer­ous fac­tors,” she says. ​“We don’t have the over­seas nurs­es com­ing in, and a lot of the agency nurs­es have, in the past, come from New Zealand and oth­er coun­tries.

​“Also, vac­ci­na­tion cen­tres and COVID-19 test­ing cen­tres have tak­en many health work­ers out of the work­force. In addi­tion, old­er nurs­es are being advised not to work in cer­tain sit­u­a­tions.

​“Nurs­ing today in Aus­tralia is challenging.

“One ben­e­fit of the face-to-face work­shops run by CRANAplus around the coun­try, is the abil­i­ty for more peo­ple to par­tic­i­pate. When peo­ple have to trav­el long dis­tances, half the time away from work is spent get­ting to the course, and man­agers may be able only to free up one per­son to attend.

“With work­shops run in cen­tres close to com­mu­ni­ties, more peo­ple can take advan­tage of the oppor­tu­ni­ty,” Leanne says.