Can you tell us about your jour­ney to becom­ing a remote area nurse? 

I start­ed nurs­ing straight from school. My grand­moth­er was a nurse. Once I became a reg­is­tered nurse, it took me a while to find my niche, but when I did, I fell in love with nursing. 

In 2015, my part­ner and I made the deci­sion to trav­el around Aus­tralia in a car­a­van. This result­ed in me briefly work­ing at Nor­man­ton Hos­pi­tal in 2016, which I loved, and the rest is history. 

In 2024, I decid­ed I want­ed to return to Queens­land to be clos­er to home. A friend worked at Yel­la­gundg­i­mar­ra Hos­pi­tal Doomadgee and was look­ing for senior staff, so I decid­ed to apply.

How do you think work­ing in a remote com­mu­ni­ty dif­fers from work­ing in a larg­er urban hospital? 

There is increased famil­iar­i­ty with your patients when work­ing in a remote com­mu­ni­ty. Over time, you become famil­iar with the patient and their med­ical his­to­ry, and you devel­op a rela­tion­ship that makes them feel com­fort­able to share their con­cerns with you. You feel like part of the com­mu­ni­ty, not just a health­care worker. 

The biggest chal­lenges are the lack of resources, few­er staff in an emer­gency, and recruit­ment of skilled staff.

What sat­is­fies and moti­vates you in your role? 

There is always some­thing to learn and some­thing to teach. I enjoy increas­ing my own knowl­edge and skill base but also shar­ing my knowl­edge and skills – that’s what keeps me moti­vat­ed. I want to help build the next gen­er­a­tion of pas­sion­ate, skilled nurses. 

What sur­prised you about work­ing in rur­al and remote health care? 

How much I love it. I came from a ter­tiary ICU and ED set­ting, but fell in love with region­al and remote nurs­ing. I think it stems back to hav­ing grown up on a farm. I love get­ting to know your com­mu­ni­ty, not hav­ing to nav­i­gate traf­fic, and liv­ing a much sim­pler life. 

There is a joy when patients feel com­fort­able and trust you as their health­care provider. I have had reg­u­lar involve­ment with a patient who attend­ed ED in the mid­dle of the night, acute­ly unwell. Their ini­tial pre­sen­ta­tion was very chal­leng­ing. How­ev­er, due to a suc­cess­ful out­come and spend­ing so much time togeth­er, the patient became more relaxed with sub­se­quent pre­sen­ta­tions, and we were able to ini­ti­ate treat­ment more rapid­ly as we were aware of exist­ing med­ical issues.

What strate­gies do you use to edu­cate patients about their health, espe­cial­ly in a com­mu­ni­ty with lim­it­ed resources? 

Patient edu­ca­tion can be chal­leng­ing, but as we see the same patients reg­u­lar­ly, fre­quent, sim­ple, con­sis­tent infor­ma­tion is the key. Work with Abo­rig­i­nal and/​or Tor­res Strait Islander clin­i­cians and sup­port staff and involve the whole fam­i­ly (if appro­pri­ate). Build a rela­tion­ship with your patient and com­mu­ni­ty, and hope­ful­ly, trust will fol­low, which will sup­port infor­ma­tion sharing. 

What tips would you give nurs­es inter­est­ed in explor­ing a career in rur­al and remote locations? 

Make sure you research and under­stand what life will be like. One of the biggest chal­lenges liv­ing in a rur­al and remote loca­tion is ensur­ing you can adapt to a qui­eter per­son­al life (on your days off). Under­take some cours­es before going remote to build a base set of skills and knowl­edge, such as CRANAplus’ Remote Emer­gency Care, Mater­ni­ty Emer­gency Care, and Pae­di­atric Emer­gency Care + Pae­di­atric Advanced Life Sup­port courses.