I am so excited and thrilled to be commencing my nursing career as a rural graduate nurse at Central Gippsland Health. Growing up and currently still living in a rural town called Maffra, has made me want to give back to my community and build strong relationships with my colleagues. Being a rural nurse will allow me to give quality patient-centred care to those patients, as I will have more time to be empathetic and create a supportive environment for my patients. Being a rural nurse will allow me to broaden my skills and build on my responsibility and appreciation for rural hospitals. Working as a rural nurse will allow me to overcome many challenging circumstances using my critical thinking skills, teamwork and effective communication.

Being a rural nurse has constant opportunities for giving back to the community and teaching the patients on the importance of medical treatment and prevention. By caring for patients that have a wide range of different illnesses will allow myself to succeed and consolidate my theoretical and practical knowledge of the nursing field. By working within the community that I have grown up in will allow myself to establish close relationships with my patient’s, colleagues and those people around me. Having completed all my nursing placements at rural hospitals has allowed myself to come to the realisation that I love working within rural hospitals and want to continue my nursing career giving back to rural communities.

Being a rural nurse will allow for self-satisfaction, as both my mother and grandmother were rural and remote nurses for many years. I will continue to strive to be a rural nurse, as I believe I am the perfect Registered Nurse that is able to care for those patient’s that live within rural areas. I believe am the perfect candidate for this Rotary Club of Sale Rural Nursing Scholarship.

In 2022, I completed my final year of my Bachelor of Nursing and was fortunate enough to experience a wide range of clinical placements in rural and remote areas. During my final year, I completed placements in surgical ward at Central Gippsland Health and High Dependency Unit at Bairnsdale Regional Health Service. These two placements gave me a great insight into how rural and remote health services run and the extensive amount of teamwork and combined knowledge that goes in to provide holistic care to the patients.

My final clinical placement of 2022, I was lucky enough to be selected to undertake my last clinical placement ever overseas in the country of Nepal. During the three weeks overseas, I completed my placement at Scheer Memorial Hospital, Banepa. I got to rotate throughout the hospital wards experiencing time in Emergency Department, Medical, Surgical, Operating Theatre and my most favourite Obstetrics ward. With limited access to equipment and facilities, I learnt how third world countries undertake their medical procedures and how to adapt to change. This placement was very grounding and made me feel so privileged to live in Australia with a great healthcare system. Nepali people are made to pay for all of their healthcare needs which comes out of their pockets and can become very expensive. It is important to be very careful in not mindlessly throwing away equipment when it could be used in other ways. By the end of this amazing experience, I grew a love for obstetrics and would love to pursue this in my future career.

Each placement I gained an extensive amount of knowledge in my nursing career. I gained skills that I am able to bring to my graduate year including having an increased medication knowledge, great time management, how to deliver patient-centred care, critical thinking skills and how to effectively communicate.

I was fortunate enough to receive a graduate position at Central Gippsland Health and recently found out that my first rotation will be at Heyfield Hospital. I am feeling excited to start this new adventure and am thrilled to be able to put my theory to practice after three years of hard work at university and many clinical placements. With the support of this scholarship, I was able to enjoy my summer with friends and family before I started my dream career of being a Registered Nurse.