On a road trip around Aus­tralia in 2011 where she found her­self check­ing into rur­al and remote clin­ics, Vicki’s pas­sion for remote liv­ing was sparked. After eight years at the Roy­al Dar­win Hos­pi­tal, she took her first agency con­tract in Port Head­land, fol­lowed by many oth­er con­tracts across Australia.

Dur­ing these peri­ods of con­tract work, Vic­ki faced chal­lenges of loneliness.

“I was always start­ing some­where new, where you’re not just new to the work­place, but also new to the town, a new staff mem­ber and hav­ing that sense of not belong­ing yet,” she says.

She often felt a lack of con­nec­tion at each new con­tract but became bet­ter at man­ag­ing it.

Her strat­e­gy for this was estab­lish­ing a rou­tine – always join­ing a gym, find­ing a cof­fee shop and espe­cial­ly going to the vis­i­tors cen­tre where she would make a list of places to explore on her time off, no mat­ter how small it was, to give her some­thing to look for­ward to.

Engag­ing in the com­mu­ni­ty while con­tin­u­ing to con­nect with friends and her part­ner via phone calls were also real­ly impor­tant for Vic­ki dur­ing this time. She explained that although the feel­ing of lone­li­ness can be sig­nif­i­cant, it is impor­tant to go slow, trust your gut with peo­ple in the work­place and com­mu­ni­ty, and find like-mind­ed peo­ple, rather than try­ing to befriend all.

“Be com­fort­able in your own uncom­fort­able,” she advises.

Vic­ki then land­ed on Christ­mas Island two and a half years ago where she and her part­ner now reside, and love it.

Her typ­i­cal day involves car­ing for aged care res­i­dents, attend­ing hos­pi­tal team meet­ings (and a cof­fee), and con­duct­ing chron­ic dis­ease checks. She also focus­es on health pro­mo­tion and health pre­ven­tion and man­ag­ing a very low-key 24-hour emer­gency department.

Vic­ki pri­ori­tis­es not only her men­tal health, but also the men­tal health of her patients – cre­at­ing a safe space for them to open up about their men­tal health chal­lenges, lead­ing to them receiv­ing the help they need.

Main­tain­ing a rou­tine, along with mak­ing time for self-care, makes her shifts sustainable.

“Going to the gym after a night shift and eat­ing well can make such a huge dif­fer­ence,” she says.

Vic­ki is one ener­gis­er bun­ny! She finds exer­cise extreme­ly impor­tant and engages in it dai­ly, with an added bonus of scu­ba div­ing and snorkelling.

She empha­sised the impor­tance of hob­bies and com­mu­ni­ty involve­ment, where she casu­al­ly men­tioned that she runs a boot camp (after the per­son­al train­er run­ning it left two years ago), organ­is­es a social net­ball com­pe­ti­tion (because she felt like play­ing net­ball), vol­un­teers with St John Ambu­lance (as they only have first aid trained vol­un­teers), assists in teach­ing first aid at TAFE, and has start­ed host­ing a radio show at the local radio station!

She does all this when she is not work­ing, and is also cur­rent­ly study­ing for a Cer­tifi­cate IV in lead­er­ship and management.

“Upskilling and keep­ing your mind busy is so impor­tant, it gives you a sense of pur­pose and accom­plish­ment,” she says.

For nurs­es con­sid­er­ing remote work, Vic­ki advis­es to pre­pare by gain­ing emer­gency and pri­ma­ry health­care skills and expe­ri­ence in a met­ro­pol­i­tan emer­gency depart­ment where there are more oppor­tu­ni­ties for expo­sure and upskilling, as well as clin­i­cal exper­tise and sup­port. Doing this before tran­sit­ing to a region­al or remote set­ting will aid in adjust­ing to the iso­la­tion and lack of sup­port systems.

“You’re it out there and you need to have con­fi­dence in your own abil­i­ty with what­ev­er comes in,” she says.

It was an absolute hon­our to meet with Vic­ki. If we all had half of her ener­gy and pas­sion for life, what an amaz­ing place our world would be.