Students to Omeo and Swifts Creek
Year 4C students at Swifts Creek with Sue Carroll, Bush Nurse at the Centre
Deb Johnston reports on the Year 4C orientation trip to the mountainous region north of Bairnsdale.
As part of the Year 4C orientation week, students were introduced to Omeo Hospital and Clinic and Swifts Creek Bush Nursing Centre where they will be spending up to two weeks each during the year.
At 8.30am all boarded the bus, driven by our experienced bus driver Deb Johnston (alias Regional Manager East & South Gippsland, ably assisted by the East Gippsland tour guide (alias Marnie Connolly Year 4C Academic Coordinator). Knowing the road is quite curvaceous a frequently (on this road) requested spew bucket was also packed.
The morning dawned as all mornings do in East Gippsland – nothing but blue skies and sunshine – as we headed north-west, with Marnie doing the tour guide job to perfection. We arrived at the Omeo Hospital in time for a tour of the hospital and clinic by Tracey Ah Sam the Medical Centre Office Manager and Annie Kissane the practice nurse.
Students were introduced to staff they would be training with and Tracey told of the many things they could experience whilst on placement: snow at Mt Hotham, horse riding, fishing, white water rafting, bush walking, bike riding and the many community nights held locally. Some students wondered how they would manage to squeeze in their clinic time with all that was on offer. The Omeo Hospital staff supplied us a morning tea of pancakes and savoury scones. We then checked out the student accommodation, said our goodbyes and headed back via Cassilis (the more scenic route) to Swifts Creek for a tour of the Bush Nursing Centre with bush nurse Sue Carroll.
Students will attend Swifts Creek Bush Nursing twice a week and Ensay once a week with the GP from Omeo as part of their placement. Sue outlined what the centre does, the type of patients they see and the distances they travel, and spoke about some of her more hair raising experiences. Sue joined us for lunch but had to be back by 1.30pm to commence student vaccinations.
We then boarded the bus for the trip home. Not many of the students will remember the trip home as all but one slept. We arrived back in Bairnsdale by 4.00pm and, due to the bus driver’s skill at the wheel, the infamous bucket sat gathering dust.
Deb Johnston, Manager, School of Rural Health – East & South Gippsland