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Your Stories
This is where we tell your stories, cover topical issues and promote meaningful initiatives.
Undergraduate nurses share their placement experiences in rural and remote Australia
CRANAplus is committed to working with its Members to explore and clarify their experiences, to help guide and inform CRANAplus activities and advocacy. This includes the emerging workforce – CRANAplus Undergraduate Student Members. In November 2023, Professional Services Officer Melanie Avion distributed a survey to all CRANAplus Undergraduate Nursing Student Members. Here are a few of the survey findings.
In late 2023, the CRANAplus Nursing and Midwifery Roundtable Members asked questions about the placement experience of undergraduate nurses, particularly but not only in rural and remote areas. Some of the questions raised related to new graduates’ preparedness for working in rural and, at times, remote areas.
Members noted that new graduates and early career nurses increasingly supervise, teach, and assess undergraduate students in geographi-cally isolated health services with limited staff or preceptor support while also working to consolidate their clinical capability.
In response, CRANAplus surveyed our Undergraduate Nursing Student Members, and an interested student met with the CRANAplus Nursing and Midwifery Roundtable for a Q&A session to discuss both preparation for placement and the student learning experience when on placements in remote and rural areas.
The CRANAplus Undergraduate Nursing Student Survey was conducted in November 2023. The survey targeted the CRANAplus Nursing and Midwifery Roundtable Members’ concerns and considered the students’ diverse personal and professional contexts in rural and remote nursing services.
Of 129 targeted members, 15 responded. All but one had placements in MMM3‑7.
While a small sample of students’ responses were consistent, they confirmed concerns regarding placement opportunities and support, particularly clinical supervision, collaboration and multi-disciplinary teamwork, preparation for culturally safe practice, and professional enculturation.
An anonymous comment from one student demonstrates the challenges facing students and inexperienced supervising nurses in rural and remote placements.
“I have been supervised… by a graduate nurse who barely spoke to me let alone taught me anything. Not their fault… no-one taught them how to do it. They are also holding it together and want to look competent.”
The survey results and direct feedback from CRANAplus Undergraduate Student Members are actively informing and shaping CRANAplus activities, including CRANAplus Position Statements developments and updates, and advocacy for health professional students. CRANAplus is committed to working with our student Members to further explore and clarify their experiences on placements in rural and remote areas.
If you would like to share your experiences or be involved in advocacy opportunities, submit an expression of interest or talk to the CRANAplus staff at our upcoming free Remote Nursing & Midwifery Expo in Melbourne this October.