CRANAplus wel­comes you to join us in Kau­r­na Coun­try for the 39^th Nation­al CRANAplus Con­fer­ence at the Hilton Hotel, Ade­laide, from 4 to 6 Octo­ber 2022. This year’s theme is Pas­sion. Pur­pose. Influ­ence. Impact.

Our sig­na­ture annu­al event is a social and pro­fes­sion­al oppor­tu­ni­ty to net­work, con­nect and share with fel­low nurs­es, mid­wives, and the broad­er remote health com­mu­ni­ty while we’re all gath­ered in one location.

The con­fer­ence program

Head to crana​con​fer​ence​.com/​p​r​ogram for an up-to-date ver­sion of our action-packed pro­gram, which fea­tures the fol­low­ing invit­ed speakers:

Keynote Speak­er: Dr Nor­man Swan

Award-win­ning broad­cast­er, jour­nal­ist and com­men­ta­tor Dr Nor­man Swan is one of Australia’s best known health per­son­al­i­ties. He hosts the Health Report and the Coro­nacast Pod­cast, reports for Four Cor­ners, presents on ABC TV’s the Drum and ABC News­Ra­dio, co-found­ed Ton­ic Health Media, edits The Choice Health Read­er, and cor­re­sponds for mul­ti­ple inter­na­tion­al med­ical jour­nals. Trained in Med­i­cine and Pae­di­atrics, Dr Swan will be dis­cussing social deter­mi­nants of health, lessons learned from the pan­dem­ic, and the future of remote health. *Dr Swan appears by arrange­ment with Clax­ton Speak­ers International.

Adjunct Prof. Shel­ley Nowlan

Deputy Nation­al Rur­al Health Com­mis­sion­er and Chief Nurs­ing and Mid­wifery Offi­cer Queens­land Health, Adj. Prof. Shel­ley Nowl­an, has over 35 years of expe­ri­ence as an RN. Wide­ly recog­nised for her lead­er­ship and con­tri­bu­tions to nurs­ing, her pro­fes­sion­al and indus­try advice on nurs­ing and mid­wifery mat­ters across Queens­land and rur­al Aus­tralia helps to dri­ve improved access to rur­al health ser­vices and a sus­tain­able work­force that can meet demand. She will be deliv­er­ing the open­ing address and Gayle Wood­ford Oration.

Dr Simon Quilty

Dr Simon Quilty has over 20 years of expe­ri­ence in remote med­i­cine in the NT and has lived and worked in the Ter­ri­to­ry as a spe­cial­ist physi­cian for the past decade. With a back­ground in pub­lic health, Dr Quilty sees first­hand the health inequal­i­ties fac­ing remote First Peo­ples as a result of coloni­sa­tion, hous­ing and infra­struc­ture inad­e­qua­cies. Dr Quilty is research­ing the rela­tion­ship between envi­ron­men­tal heat and well­be­ing in the NT, and cul­tur­al­ly safe oppor­tu­ni­ties to adapt to future warm­ing. Read our inter­view Sur­viv­ing extreme heat with Dr Quilty.

Prof. Sue Kildea

CRANAplus Fel­low and Pro­fes­sor of Mid­wifery and Co-Direc­tor of the Mol­ly Wardagu­ga Research Cen­tre, CDU, Prof. Sue Kildea is an inter­na­tion­al­ly recog­nised mid­wifery leader, known for her advo­ca­cy for rur­al and remote health and for bring­ing birthing ser­vices to Abo­rig­i­nal and Tor­res Strait con­trol. A RN/RM with clin­i­cal, man­age­ment, pol­i­cy, edu­ca­tion and research expe­ri­ence, Prof. Kildea has been using research in the mater­ni­ty field to dri­ve social change since the mid-90s. She will be dis­cussing birthing on coun­try and mid­wifery ser­vices in remote Aus­tralia. Read our inter­view Healthy mums and babies with Prof. Kildea.

Dr Rose­mary Wyber

Head of Strat­e­gy for END RHD, Senior Adjunct Research Fel­low at the Uni­ver­si­ty of WA, and PhD Stu­dent with the Office of the Chief Sci­en­tist at The George Insti­tute for Glob­al Health, Dr Wyber’s PhD focus is on devel­op­ing an ​‘endgame’ for rheumat­ic heart dis­ease in Aus­tralia. Dr Wyber com­plet­ed her med­ical degree in New Zealand, her Mas­ters of Pub­lic Health at the Har­vard School of Pub­lic Health, and her Gen­er­al Prac­tice train­ing in Abo­rig­i­nal Com­mu­ni­ty Con­trolled Clin­ics in the NT. Read our inter­view Five things you should know about RHD with Dr Wyber. 

Prof. Roianne West

Kalka­doon and Djaku-nde woman, Roianne West, CEO of CATSI­NaM, has led a life of extra­or­di­nary com­mit­ment to Indige­nous Health. An RN who has also com­plet­ed a Master’s of Men­tal Health Nurs­ing and a PhD devel­op­ing a mod­el of excel­lence for increas­ing Indige­nous Nurs­es in Aus­tralia, Roianne was Australia’s first Nurs­ing Direc­tor at a ter­tiary hos­pi­tal with a ded­i­cat­ed port­fo­lio of Indige­nous health, Australia’s first Pro­fes­sor of Indige­nous Health, and inau­gur­al Dean of First Peo­ples Health at Grif­fith Uni­ver­si­ty. Read our inter­view with Prof. West. 

Leeona West

Leeona is a proud Kalka­doon and Djunke woman and along with her twin sis­ter and her broth­er she grad­u­at­ed from Deakin Uni­ver­si­ty in 2001 with a Bach­e­lor of Nurs­ing degree. Leeona has expe­ri­ence work­ing in rur­al and remote hos­pi­tals, aged care facil­i­ties, pri­ma­ry health care cen­tres and Abo­rig­i­nal Com­mu­ni­ty Con­trolled Health Ser­vices. Leeona has worked across Cape York and the north-west includ­ing the Gulf of Car­pen­taria where she was the DON of Gununa Hos­pi­tal (Morn­ing­ton Island). Bal­anc­ing her cul­tur­al respon­si­bil­i­ties with her clin­i­cal skills, sys­tems approach and good gov­er­nance prac­tice has enhanced her abil­i­ty as a com­mu­ni­ty leader.

Con­nect­ing with colleagues

As remote area nurs­es, mid­wives and health pro­fes­sion­als who work through­out Aus­tralia, we don’t get to cel­e­brate togeth­er often. So when we do get the oppor­tu­ni­ty, we make the most of it!

We’re going all out on our Gala Din­ner on the last night of our con­fer­ence pro­gram (6 Octo­ber). Host­ed in the Hilton Hotel’s glam­orous ball­room, the din­ner is your chance to dress up and catch up with your inter­state col­leagues and friends, both new and old. 

The din­ner will be a sit down three-course meal with a drinks pack­age, inclu­sive for full del­e­gate registrations.

The theme for the 2022 Gala Din­ner is ​‘All that sparkles’. We encour­age you to embrace the theme with sparkling acces­sories or dress! With our focus on sus­tain­abil­i­ty, we also chal­lenge you to not buy any­thing new. Bor­row a frock from a friend or a bowtie from a bestie. Rock your daughter’s Princess Elsa tiara or your grandma’s cash­mere hand­bag. Or how about your spark­li­est op shop find?

The five-piece Bak­er Boys Band will be per­form­ing live music, too. Move onto the dance­floor as they play every­thing from Top 40 and clas­sics to clas­si­cal and jazz. 

If you’re look­ing for some­where to stay after the big night and dur­ing the con­fer­ence, browse accom­mo­da­tion options at crana​con​fer​ence​.com/​a​c​c​o​m​m​o​d​ation. Some options include a dis­count for attendees.

Finan­cial support

Did you know, you may be eli­gi­ble to receive finan­cial sup­port to attend the 2022 CRANAplus Con­fer­ence through the Health Work­force Schol­ar­ship Pro­gram (HWSP)?

Head to hwsp​.com​.au for more infor­ma­tion and scroll down to your state or ter­ri­to­ry-based rur­al work­force agen­cy’s schol­ar­ship page for eli­gi­bil­i­ty cri­te­ria and win­dows for application.

Gala din­ner atten­dance is includ­ed in all full del­e­gate reg­is­tra­tions and exhibitor reg­is­tra­tions, but make sure to book dur­ing the reg­is­tra­tion process. Addi­tion­al tick­ets can be purchased.

We will also be pre­sent­ing CRANAplus Award Win­ners, CRANAplus Fel­low­ships and Cen­tral for Remote Health Grad­u­ates dur­ing our 39^th Annu­al Conference.

Exhi­bi­tion space

Our con­fer­ence will fea­ture an exhi­bi­tion space where you’ll be able to engage with brands, prod­ucts or ser­vices that may be help­ful to your prac­tice, pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment, and self-care. CRANAplus extends a warm thank you to our amaz­ing spon­sors and exhibitors; their sup­port helps us to deliv­er an engag­ing and ben­e­fi­cial event.

In the exhib­it space, the CRANAplus Edu­ca­tion Team will be show­cas­ing edu­ca­tion­al equip­ment utilised in our cours­es. You’ll have an oppor­tu­ni­ty to apply your skills and engage in friend­ly com­pe­ti­tion with col­leagues for prizes and giveaways.

Our Men­tal Health and Well­be­ing team will also be pro­vid­ing a Well­be­ing Space to relax and recharge amongst the busi­ness of the con­fer­ence day, which will fea­ture activ­i­ties, such as Lego, colour­ing in and a grat­i­tude wall, to help you unwind. Vis­it to refresh your tool­box of well­be­ing strategies!

To find out more or to reg­is­ter, head to crana​con​fer​ence​.com