The CRANAplus Edu­ca­tion team is proud to share that we deliv­ered our first Mirii (star) course at Batch­e­lor Insti­tute, NT, in October.

Mirii is a new pro­gram specif­i­cal­ly writ­ten for Abo­rig­i­nal and/​or Tor­res Strait Islander Health Prac­ti­tion­ers and Work­ers. The Mirii course pro­vides par­tic­i­pants with the skills to effec­tive­ly use clin­i­cal care man­u­als and guide­lines in response to com­mon patient presentations.

It includes a par­tic­u­lar focus on ear­ly recog­ni­tion of the dete­ri­o­rat­ing patient, and appro­pri­ate assess­ment, treat­ment, and man­age­ment of patients in the con­text of a remote set­ting. Con­tent and case stud­ies cov­er both acute and chron­ic dis­ease presentations.

To cel­e­brate the launch of Mirii, CRANAplus com­mis­sioned an art­work by Yuwaalaraay artist Gus Draper.

In the paint­ing, Gus explains that the blue rep­re­sents peo­ple and the green sym­bol­is­es CRANAplus. The cir­cles on either side rep­re­sent peo­ple gath­er­ing for guid­ance and sup­port. The orange and white dots show the path­way towards Mirii, which serves as a guid­ing source of light and knowledge.

Under the guid­ance of CRANAplus’ Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of First Peo­ples’ Strate­gies, Dal­las McK­e­own, the Mirii course design fos­ters a Cul­tur­al­ly Safe learn­ing envi­ron­ment for Abo­rig­i­nal and Tor­res Strait Islander par­tic­i­pants. The first course at Batch­e­lor was a suc­cess for every­one involved.

Day one began with a warm and very gen­er­ous Wel­come to Kun­garakan Coun­try from Dr Sue Stan­ton (pic­tured below). Dr Sue wished par­tic­i­pants well and remind­ed them of the pow­er they have as health pro­fes­sion­als with­in their com­mu­ni­ties, and their unique capac­i­ty to pro­vide care that is wel­comed and Cul­tur­al­ly Safe.

After­wards, we got into the pro­gram for the day, which includ­ed a review of vital signs and trends, doc­u­men­ta­tion and han­dover, pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary sur­vey, and recog­ni­tion, sta­bil­i­sa­tion and esca­la­tion of the dete­ri­o­rat­ing patient.

Day two start­ed with respond­ing to patients expe­ri­enc­ing chest pain, fol­lowed by a revi­sion of care for those with renal com­plex­i­ties and dial­y­sis. Recog­nis­ing and respond­ing to sep­sis was also cov­ered in depth and includ­ed sce­nario-based activ­i­ties requir­ing the appli­ca­tion of sep­sis care path­ways and inter­ven­tions. Under­stand­ing ear health, the impor­tance of appro­pri­ate treat­ment and man­age­ment and prac­tis­ing ear assess­ments on each oth­er round­ed out the day.

The third and final day includ­ed neu­ro­log­i­cal assess­ment, pae­di­atric pre­sen­ta­tions, res­pi­ra­to­ry assess­ment and prac­ti­cal skills includ­ing frac­ture man­age­ment, immo­bil­i­sa­tion and plas­ter back­slabs, enven­o­ma­tion and ban­dag­ing, spinal and pelvic trau­ma and man­age­ment includ­ing appli­ca­tion of pelvic binders. The course con­clud­ed with a ses­sion on skin assess­ment and com­mon rash­es and conditions.

Par­tic­i­pants were enthu­si­as­tic and engaged across the three days, enjoy­ing the inter­ac­tive pro­gram, and fre­quent oppor­tu­ni­ties to prac­tise skills along the way. Thanks to the gen­eros­i­ty of par­tic­i­pants, the CRANAplus teach­ing team was equal­ly reward­ed in their learn­ing. Those teach­ing on the course fur­thered their under­stand­ing of Cul­tur­al Safe­ty and appro­pri­ate care for First Peo­ples patients and their families.

For future cours­es we are keen to have Abo­rig­i­nal and/​or Tor­res Strait Islander Health Prac­ti­tion­ers or Work­ers join our teach­ing team as Facil­i­ta­tors. If you or some­one you know might be inter­est­ed please con­nect with Clin­i­cal Edu­ca­tion Man­ag­er Leanne Lau­rie at leanne.​laurie@​crana.​org.​au.

It has been some time since CRANAplus has deliv­ered a ded­i­cat­ed First Peo­ples’ course so the launch of Mirii marks an impor­tant achieve­ment for our organ­i­sa­tion. I take this oppor­tu­ni­ty to con­grat­u­late the Edu­ca­tion team and Dal­las McKeown. 

The out­stand­ing work of Clin­i­cal Edu­ca­tion Man­ag­er Leanne Lau­rie, and Remote Clin­i­cal Edu­ca­tors Nicole Smith and Kathy Arthurs, has been inte­gral to reach­ing this mile­stone. The work of those ​‘behind the scenes’ is acknowl­edged also, includ­ing the con­tri­bu­tion of the resource devel­op­ment, equip­ment, and logis­tics team under the lead­er­ship of Learn­ing Design Man­ag­er, Julie Moran.