Nursing in Rural Aotearoa

I know that as part of the health care team here at Clutha Health First General Practice, in Balclutha, we provide good health care, being available, and accessible. For me personally, many people don't even know what I do , now that I am a Nurse Practitioner. I spend quite a bit of time explaining that I am not a doctor, and have had a lot of training to get to where I am today. I have a sign on the wall, it says "Nurse Practitioner: brain of a doctor, heart of a nurse, hands of an angel". The first part - the 'brain of a doctor, heart of a nurse', appeared on my computer screen one day, someone put it there for me. 'The hands of an angel' come from a patient.

As I reflect on my career, the turning point was really when I was at an Emergency Nursing Conference, in 1998. One of the nurses from Roxburgh stood up requesting someone to help them as the on-call nurse. I thought "well, I live an hour away, I'm sure I can do it, on my days off". So I indicated interest, and she said "well, can you suture", and went on to list other skills that I should have, and was promptly asked to apply. I felt so valued at the job interview (for my experience) and for what I could achieve in the community. I had a brief hand-over on my first week-end. I was shown the paging system and given a cell phone, then shown to my accommodation.

I would never have contemplated completing the journey to Nurse Practitioner if I had not been drawn to work in Roxburgh, due to doctors pulling out of providing after hours health care and nurses stepping in to provide this vital health care out of necessity.

So, I am enormously proud of what I have done, not only for me and nursing, but for my husband. Because of poor health, he never thought he'd see me as a Nurse Practitioner. I wanted to prove to him that I could get there, especially for him.

Not too bad for someone who didn't really want to go nursing when she left school is it?

Reproduced with permission of the editors. Contact Jean Ross for more information.