Dan Han­son com­plet­ed his nurs­ing degree at La Trobe Uni­ver­si­ty in Vic­to­ria and recent­ly drove up to the Top End for his place­ment at the Roy­al Dar­win Hos­pi­tal. His sights are now set on secur­ing a remote post­ing at the end of this year.

“Find­ing CRANAplus and the LINKS Men­tor­ing Pro­gram was exact­ly what I need­ed,” says Dan, ​“to have some­one in the indus­try, some­one able to help me go in the direc­tion I want to go.”

A rur­al nurs­ing place­ment in Vic­to­ria, although not remote, was the begin­ning for Dan. Look­ing for oppor­tu­ni­ties to get into the bush and to have remote expe­ri­ence, he dis­cov­ered LINKS and was paired with his men­tor, John Wright, Deputy Chair of the CRANAplus Board of Direc­tors, who works at the Ten­nant Creek Hos­pi­tal as the Nurse Edu­ca­tion and Research Coordinator.

“John’s expe­ri­ence in remote sit­u­a­tions is well suit­ed to where I want to end up,” says Dan. ​“He has a wealth of knowl­edge to share with some­one like me who is tip-toe­ing around the edges.

“I would say the sup­port of a men­tor is pos­si­bly the most impor­tant aspect of men­tor­ing, a guide on the side as opposed to some­one out there instruct­ing you. 

“John was real­ly help­ful in dri­ving me. If I had self-doubts about cer­tain things he was always there, avail­able to dis­cuss my concerns.

“It’s impor­tant to be sup­port­ed in becom­ing resource­ful, in find­ing things out for your­self, and hav­ing a men­tor to con­firm you are going in the right direction.”

When Dan couldn’t secure a remote place­ment dur­ing his stud­ies, he and John came up with a plan to look for vol­un­teer opportunities.

“I got a gig with an organ­i­sa­tion called Red Earth, assist­ing with pro­grams that involve stu­dents from main­ly city schools spend­ing time with Tra­di­tion­al Own­ers on their home­lands,” says Dan.

“I’ve done two stints, the first as a vol­un­teer, the sec­ond in a paid posi­tion and those expe­ri­ences solid­i­fied that remote nurs­ing was the area I want­ed to work in in the future.”

Dan’s men­tor has stressed the impor­tance of hav­ing a very good under­stand­ing of pri­ma­ry health, pub­lic health and pre­ven­tion strate­gies as a foundation.

“We also looked at the need to be cul­tur­al­ly safe, to cre­ate a space for oth­ers to feel safe,” says Dan.

“That is a very big part of nurs­ing and will mean dif­fer­ent things in dif­fer­ent con­texts, whether it’s an Indige­nous com­mu­ni­ty, a min­ing com­mu­ni­ty or a small town. You need to get to under­stand your clients and be able to adapt to the envi­ron­ment you are in, to under­stand the peo­ple and under­stand what dri­ves them, what makes them feel safe, to have a respect­ful rela­tion­ship with them.”

Being inde­pen­dent and hav­ing to do things on your own is anoth­er aspect of remote work the pair have spo­ken about. 

“I would like to think I have good prob­lem-solv­ing skills but I wouldn’t say I am 100 per cent con­fi­dent,” says Dan. 

“I am not com­pla­cent. To say you have no wor­ries is not the right way to think. I will always have a long way to go and think that is the right attitude.”

Dan, who pre­vi­ous­ly was in the mil­i­tary, has always leaned towards client-ser­vice roles.

“I’m moti­vat­ed to help peo­ple, so I was look­ing for a career help­ing oth­ers. Also mum is a nurse, so there was some influ­ence there as well.”

Now that Dan has achieved his goal to secure his place­ment in Dar­win, he and John both decid­ed to move the goal­posts to con­tin­ue the men­tor­ing process and the goal now is to secure a remote post­ing at the end of this placement.