I have recent­ly com­plet­ed one of my nurs­ing place­ments in Carnar­von, which is a town almost 1000km away from Perth, tak­ing 10 hours dri­ve to get to. 

I was assigned a four-week place­ment in the gen­er­al ward at Carnar­von Hos­pi­tal, and I was lucky enough to have a friend com­plete their place­ment at the same time as me. 

We were lucky to share accom­mo­da­tion with some of the nurs­es and an OT stu­dent — which was great because it meant it was a real­ly social house­hold; we always were hav­ing fun. 

The gen­er­al ward and mater­ni­ty ward are inter­change­able, although they are not cur­rent­ly birthing in Carnar­von there still are mater­ni­ty patients of course. After I com­plete my Bach­e­lor of Nurs­ing, I plan on pur­su­ing fur­ther edu­ca­tion to become a reg­is­tered mid­wife and so Carnar­von was a great expe­ri­ence for me!

The mid­wives main­ly worked in the out­pa­tient clin­ic doing com­mu­ni­ty mid­wifery, but I had the priv­i­lege of work­ing and learn­ing from them when the occa­sion­al mater­ni­ty patient was admit­ted to the ward.

As the hos­pi­tal is a small rur­al site, the gen­er­al ward also cared for pae­di­atric, pal­lia­tive, day surgery, geri­atric, respite, mater­ni­ty, and men­tal health — basi­cal­ly all patients. So, I was able to care for a wide range of patients and learn so many dif­fer­ent things!

Once a month in Carnar­von, they have day surgery days where the gen­er­al ward turns into day surgery which was amaz­ing, so I was able to assist with pre-and post-oper­a­tive care too!

Com­plet­ing this place­ment at a remote hos­pi­tal pro­vid­ed me with edu­ca­tion regard­ing the inde­pen­dence of scope and advo­ca­cy for patients who may not always have access to a doc­tor. It also opened my learn­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties and real­ly enriched my edu­ca­tion as I was able to have a real­ly diverse range of patients.

I would encour­age all stu­dents to pur­sue at least one rur­al or remote place­ment in their degree as they are com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent to met­ro­pol­i­tan placements.