“CRANAplus offers excel­lent cours­es and the fact that they are pro­vid­ed in envi­ron­ments close to where the par­tic­i­pants work is a real plus,” says Jack­ie, Region­al Ser­vices Man­ag­er with the Roy­al Fly­ing Doc­tor Ser­vice (RFDS) in Bro­ken Hill. 

“From Bro­ken Hill, it’s a five-hour dri­ve to a major cen­tre, adding a day on either side of the course. To have cours­es held close by and acces­si­ble is an extra bonus.

“Tele­health and online cours­es work well, [but] there’s noth­ing quite like hands-on.”

When cours­es are avail­able where remote health pro­fes­sion­als live and work, par­tic­i­pants are more like­ly to feel com­fort­able and active­ly par­tic­i­pate and engage, Jack­ie adds.

“[Par­tic­i­pants] are hap­py to share infor­ma­tion about what works and doesn’t work in the con­text of their own envi­ron­ment, bring­ing it back to their world,” she says. ​“This is so use­ful for everyone. 

“As facil­i­ta­tors, we don’t walk in there think­ing we know it all. We are always learn­ing our­selves, learn­ing from each oth­er. And from the participants.”

“These cours­es also show you that you are not alone. What­ev­er your con­cern, it’s nice to bring you back to this fact. It’s good for your men­tal health. There will always be oth­ers in the room who have been there, and who can advise you.”

Although she is orig­i­nal­ly from Mel­bourne, Jack­ie has always had a fas­ci­na­tion for small communities. 

“For my nurs­ing train­ing, it was no sur­prise to any­one when I took a job work­ing in War­rnam­bool in coun­try Vic­to­ria,” she says. 

“I also knew that I’d get a well-round­ed expe­ri­ence rather than doing the same thing every day.”

Just before she head­ed off for a nurs­ing stint in Abu Dhabi, an advert for a flight nurse with the RFDS caught Jackie’s eye. 

“I realised that would chal­lenge me and expand my skills,” she says. 

“You need to be at the top of your game to do that job.

“My time over­seas was a fan­tas­tic expe­ri­ence, with expo­sure to peo­ple from dif­fer­ent back­grounds, and when I returned to Aus­tralia I stud­ied mid­wifery, and worked in emer­gency and crit­i­cal care. Always with that advert in mind.”

Since Jack­ie joined the flight nurs­ing team in Bro­ken Hill 12 years ago, she has seen the pri­ma­ry health and men­tal health teams expand, reflect­ing the industry’s grow­ing focus on prevention. 

After her son was born, Jack­ie moved into an edu­ca­tion role and when she took on her cur­rent man­age­r­i­al role last year, she saw an oppor­tu­ni­ty to vol­un­teer as a facil­i­ta­tor with CRANAplus. She hopes to be able to facil­i­tate two cours­es a year.

“I had [par­tic­i­pat­ed in] CRANAplus cours­es myself, and the Roy­al Fly­ing Doc­tor Ser­vice uses the CRANAplus cours­es for its train­ing,” she says. 

“So I know how valu­able they are. And I urge any­one who gets the oppor­tu­ni­ty to attend one to take it.”