In 2023, Erica was completing her graduate year in rural and remote Queensland when she collaborated on video content for final year students.
Through this work, Erica has highlighted the incredible impact that rural and remote nurses have on their communities and the case diversity, scope of practice and leadership opportunities in remote areas.
Her video displayed how junior RNs can utilise the incredible knowledge of senior ENs and AINs to inform shared decision-making and person-centred care within rural communities.
As a result, Erica’s local hospital and health service received 36 applications for the upcoming 2024 rural and remote graduate nursing program. This number was one of the largest the program had ever seen and considering that only 12 positions were available for the upcoming intake, this made entry competitive.
Erica is currently working towards completing her Rural and Isolated Practice Registered Nurses qualification so that she can better serve her local community. She is also a part of a dual RN and Graduate Paramedic pathway within her local health service.
“I was very lucky last year I got to go to work at the Birdsville Races. I got nominated by a few directors of nursing and clinical facilitators. I packed up my car and went for two weeks. I also helped in Bedourie for four of those days. It was so much fun, I had an amazing time. You also interact with all the tourists that come in, and also see how the community interacts with the Flying Doctors services out there because obviously they don’t have a doctor on site, so it was interesting to see how that relationship and how that dynamic works and how that changes from a rural hospital to a remote facility as well. That was a particularly interesting highlight for me.”
Birdsville’s population is about 100 – 110 people and then it jumps to about 7,000 for the races so it’s one tiny town which gets two mass gathering events a year and it’s incredible to see how the community pulls together to be able to help these events go along. And you also interact with all the tourists that come in and out the door because we get a lot that get out there and go “Oh there’s no pharmacy here” and we go “No, there isn’t one.” And also seeing how they’re interacting with the Flying Doctors services out there because obviously they don’t have a doctor on site (we don’t here either) so it was interesting to see how that relationship and how that dynamic works and how that changes from a rural hospital to a remote facility as well. So that was a particularly interesting highlight for me.