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In love with Alice Springs — Kylie's pitch for working in the Centre
Registered Nurse, clinical educator and CRANAplus course facilitator Kylie Huxtable, admits she ‘shamelessly promotes’ her current hometown of Alice Springs to participants considering remote work in Central Australia.
Kylie has been facilitating Remote Emergency Care (REC), Advanced Remote Emergency Care (AREC), Advanced Life Support (ALS) and Triage Emergency Care (TEC) around the country since 2021, travelling to Adelaide, Darwin, Broome, Nhulunbuy and Hobart, as well as facilitating in Alice Springs. She says many course participants take advantage of the opportunity to network and get advice and information about interesting places to start remote nursing.
“When you think of remote nursing, you think of the isolation”, says Kylie. “Alice Springs I believe provides the perfect balance for newcomers to the remote nursing experience: isolation with support. You are not alone.
“The style of nursing in Central Australia is vastly different to anything elsewhere in the country, considering the populations we have here and the vastness of the areas that we cover – down to the APY lands in the south and over to the border with Western Australia.
“We are a big town, with a hospital large enough to support a really big area, but it is still isolated enough to give nurses a really good foundation. It’s a stepping stone.
“Alice Springs, in particular, is suited to those participants who want to get a really good feel for working in Central Australia,” says Kylie, who has lived in Alice Springs for more than six years.
“I believe Alice Springs is a great place to get your foot in the door.
“After a few months in the Emergency Department, they will get confidence to branch out and go to more remote locations.”
Kylie also recommends the lifestyle in Alice Springs, and is grateful that her children, six in all, are having this opportunity.
“The camping is terrific, the lifestyle is relaxing.
“It does have its social problems, absolutely, but it does not hinder the charm of living here. Alice Springs often gets a bad rap, but I intend to stay here for a few more years.”
Kylie’s nursing background is in critical care, starting in Canberra where she graduated. She spent two years in the Coronary Care Unit (CCU) and the rest of the decade in the Emergency Department, working her way up to a team-leading role within that department and then moved onto an education role.
“I worked on FIFO contracts in far west Queensland for a time and spent three months in Kandahar Air Base in Afghanistan running a clinic for Air traffic controllers,” she says.
“I also spent a decade as an army reservist working as a combat medic. I have completed a paramedicine post grad course and an Emergency Nursing grad dip.
“When I moved out to Alice, I went back to the bottom of the pile, and worked in ED again, working myself up into a ward-based education role and then onto the hospital-wide Clinical education team.
“Whilst on this team I began developing education for RAN’s in Central Australia and did the REC so I knew what was about and what the RANs were learning. My role now is an educator to the entire nursing staff at Alice Springs Hospital.”
Facilitating with CRANAplus fits in perfectly with Kylie’s career progression. “In the role as educator for RANs, it was suggested it would be good for me to do the courses, and then that moved to being a facilitator on the courses,” she says.
“I love that shared experience you get on the courses. As a facilitator, you learn something every time, from the participants and also other facilitators.
“I love to get inspiration and ideas from others and model my nursing on things I learn from them.
“And the positive feedback from participants is always a welcome part of the role.”
Continue reading about CRANAplus education with these articles from volunteer facilitator Jason and maternity educator Amanda.