Lyn Byers, Nurse Prac­ti­tion­er, remote area nurse, mid­wife and men­tal health nurse, is pas­sion­ate about the edu­ca­tion­al resources offered by CRANAplus, stress­ing that it is an impor­tant plat­form for clin­i­cians in rur­al and par­tic­u­lar­ly remote areas to have access to.

“The resources are now there so that when clin­i­cians go remote, they have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to do the ground­work before they go,” she says. ​“For old­er nurs­es, it’s impor­tant to remain curi­ous – it’s so easy to slip into habits – and CRANAplus pro­vides not only face to face emer­gency cours­es, but also webi­na­rs and online updates to keep mem­bers curi­ous and inter­est­ed in upskilling. Patients out there deserve the best pos­si­ble care.”

Lyn prac­tices this phi­los­o­phy. ​“Dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, I realised I could learn more about infec­tious dis­eases: how to man­age things, learn about sup­ports around to help, and ways we can learn to put our knowl­edge into practice.

“You don’t know what you don’t know,” says Lyn. ​“Clin­i­cans go out into remote and dis­cov­er they may be expert in their sphere – but out there, they realise there are gaps in their knowl­edge. The CRANAplus Remote Area Nurs­ing cer­ti­fi­ca­tion helps nurs­es to pin­point those gaps.

“I believe, at the very least, peo­ple going remote should do the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion we offer. They can mea­sure their knowl­edge against the frame­work and see the stan­dards required. They are assessed by remote peers and a bonus is that the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion also goes towards their pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment points.”

The online facil­i­ties for edu­ca­tion has proved extreme­ly use­ful, says Lyn. ​“Peo­ple have very busy lives. I know peo­ple miss the per­son­al con­tact and inter­ac­tion and since our edu­ca­tion cours­es returned to face-to-face work­shops, there’s been a huge demand. But the online facil­i­ties are cru­cial for many, offer­ing such resources as webi­na­rs and self-paced learning.

“I sug­gest to every­one in remote, when you have down time, and in the remote set­ting maybe not a lot of things to do, use that down time, at least some of it, for your­self, for your education.

“CRANAplus has cer­tain­ly grown from its grass­roots begin­nings,” says Lyn, ​“but still retains the strengths of its origins.

“In my time on the Board, I’ve seen the organ­i­sa­tion become more polit­i­cal­ly pow­er­ful. Peo­ple in Can­ber­ra ini­ti­ate con­tact, which is what we want. And to meet the needs of the mem­bers, we have had to become much more sophis­ti­cat­ed, and pay much more atten­tion to governance.”

Lyn’s work on the Board has also brought into focus for her the valu­able work of Bush Sup­port Ser­vices and Pro­fes­sion­al Services.

“Bush Sup­port Ser­vices (BSS) also offers a vari­ety of access options, help­ing us to man­age our life-work bal­ance. Remote is a very stress­ful area to work in and peo­ple absolute­ly need the sup­port and encour­age­ment that BSS offers.

“The advo­ca­cy work with gov­ern­ment and the sub­mis­sions regard­ing pol­i­cy writ­ten by Pro­fes­sion­al Ser­vices can fly under the radar, but it’s impor­tant work – and I’d sug­gest to mem­bers that they may like to con­sid­er, for exam­ple, con­tribut­ing to sub­mis­sions when the calls go out.”

Lyn, based in Alice Springs, is cur­rent­ly the clin­i­cal nurse con­sul­tant at Nganam­pa Health Coun­cil, work­ing in the APY Lands in SA. Her patch stretch­es from the Stu­art High­way to the WA border.

“Peo­ple have dif­fer­ent arrange­ments that suit them,” she says. ​“Some go remote for extend­ed peri­ods, oth­ers do short-term relief work.

“For every­one, it’s impor­tant to recog­nise that you can become desen­si­tised to nor­mal­i­ty. You can’t just pop down the road for a cof­fee or to get your hair­cut. You need to remem­ber the rea­son for being in the remote set­ting is to work. You are in the minor­i­ty, and you need to leave that set­ting reg­u­lar­ly to refresh and rejuvenate.” 

In addi­tion to her job and Board work, Lyn is the chair of the edi­to­r­i­al com­mit­tee for the Remote Pri­ma­ry Health Care Man­u­als, cur­rent­ly under review. New edi­tions are planned for pub­li­ca­tion in late 2022.

“These man­u­als are cru­cial for the care of patients in remote com­mu­ni­ties, health work­ers couldn’t oper­ate with­out them,” says Lyn. ​“They are peri­od­i­cal­ly reviewed and assessed by RANs to make sure the guide­lines are prac­ti­cal and use­able. They pro­vide guid­ance on clin­i­cal care in the remote con­text from women’s busi­ness to health pro­mo­tion and screen­ing, from chron­ic dis­ease to sex­u­al health, and how-to pro­ce­dures for every imag­in­able med­ical sit­u­a­tion. Impor­tant­ly they guide prac­ti­tion­ers in assess­ing a med­ical sit­u­a­tion such as abdom­i­nal pain and fever in chil­dren, and then how to man­age and com­mu­ni­cate the sit­u­a­tion to others.