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.