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CRANAplus launches Mirii Course designed for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Practitioners and Workers

10 Dec 2022

Our brand new CRANAplus Mirii Course is designed to provide Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Practitioners and Workers with the skills to effectively use clinical care manuals and guidelines, in response to common patient presentations. CRANAplus Deputy CEO & Executive Director of Education, Amelia Druhan reports on its launch in the Territory this October.

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.

Art­work by Yuwaalaraay artist Gus Drap­er, com­mis­sioned by CRANAplus to cel­e­brate the launch of Mirii.

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.

The team received a warm Wel­come to Coun­try from Kun­garakan Tra­di­tion­al Own­er-Cus­to­di­an and Elder Aca­d­e­m­ic, Dr Sue Stanton

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.

If you are inter­est­ed in know­ing more about Mirii or would like to enquire about book­ings please reach out to us.