I think they need to be aware that there's a health service in the NT that focuses on 97% women’s issues We also advocate for women's issues. We've currently been advocating for five years for the changes to some legislation in the Territory. It's an exciting place to work, if you're interested in some primary health care nursing it's one of the services that does primary healthcare well. It leaves you knowing that you've worked autonomously, you are not subservient into a doctor. You have your own client list as a nurse, doctors have their client list and that you deal with issues. If a nurse has an issue then a doctor might end up sorting it out but at the end of the day the nurse has their own client base and can focus on helping and empowering.
We do see a lot of young people so it's a happy place and sexual reproductive health is sort of the fun place to work in a way because there are some really fun stories. You see healthy people, basically you are seeing healthy clientele. They're not coming in with health issues, like hepatitis or if they do we can sort that out but they're not coming in with a chronic disease that needs a lot long-term management
We're talking about a healthy person who wants to come into the clinic and find out what was an contraception that she can choose that's better than the one she's on. Or she just needs a health screen today or she's concerned about an episode of sex a couple of nights ago she might have got an infection what can she do about it. So they're here because they really want to be and they're in a preventative health service
As a registered nurse, I think it's important for health students to be aware that they need good clinical experience before they step into a more psychosocial/ emotional support environment and clinical experiences is essential. Not just specifically for the cancer area I think clinical experience in general is essential
I think what's important for health students to be aware of in a mental health setting in terms of primary health care would actually to just get out into the community and know what's around you, know what organizations there are.
I know when I was a student I had no idea about some of the NGOs and non-government organizations that existed and the work that they do.
Talk to people, research, get online, have a look what is out there
Ask further, if you have someone who you know works in the sector ask them if you can come along have a chat or you can just go check it out
I think it's important to be aware of mental health because no matter what health industry you're working in as a student, mental health is always going to rear its head, you're always going to have someone who's suffering with mental illness or who's mental health could be better or that you could promote because let's face it each and every one of us is going to have something that comes across in our life in terms of mental health or where we could improve
It does not matter what area you are in, so I suppose be aware of it in mental health know who you can refer to, know how you can refer people there.
Often it's a case of people can refer themselves, but they don't know where to go so if you as a health care provider or health professional are aware of the different services and the different range of services you can refer people there and you can give them a choice.
You can say this organization does this type of work, whether it's if you want to get out into the community and participate or you want to learn how to , you want to do art and cooking just because you know you need to decrease isolation for someone because you find that's what they're struggling with.
You give them a broad range of options and I think that is powerful and is empowering for people.
I think a really important thing to note in an organization like Cancer Council NT in the Territory is that it's a bit of a smaller organization than anything that might be in other states and territories, so we don't necessarily have the same amount of staff and level of different specialized areas. It does involve a bit of flexibility in your work and also working with the population which is dispersed over a very wide geographical area -so having to account for that in your service provision
Regarding health students we do have a lot of students that come through here doing placements on their courses. Usually a lot of the information that we get is about consistency of messages. As an education service, we don't need to muddle things up with extremely technical terms and make it very difficult.
A good example on the cardiac side is there's about 15 different ways to say the word heart attack and if every health professional uses a different term that doesn't help at all in trying to get some clear messaging through. From the health service student’s perspective, seeing some of the consistent clear messages that we have and how we educate people is probably something that's beneficial on that side. In the Northern Territory, while you're in one university what you will experience is the common language of the lecturers and of everybody else around you. However the real world, particularly if you're looking at somebody who's working in a hospital setting or in a community setting it's rare to find two people have actually been trained by the same people. In fact you're getting to know people from all over, not only Australia but all over the world working here and we've all come from different terminology backgrounds.
Getting to know what is the consistent wording here is really important.
Particularly with our indigenous clients where English might be a third or fourth language in the first place. If we muddy things up with cardiovascular disease, coronary artery disease, acute coronary syndromes, old fashioned heart attack, unstable angina and the words just keep dribbling on and that muddles everything up, we need some nice clear messaging.
I think the important point is that primary health care is quite broad and that there's a multi-faceted approach within the sector to patient-centric care and ensuring that the patient is at the center of the primary health care pathway.
Well again probably just having a good solid clinical background, and knowing that it is very specific to a certain chronic disease. So your field of practice will be narrowed to the specific chronic disease.
For students who would potentially come working for an organization such as TEAMhealth there is a variety of qualifications that we would look for.
We generally look for someone with some tertiary qualifications and some people have just certificates, but it is also about the variety of skills that someone has it's not just about the education.
If you volunteered in a particular area and you know you have skills in other areas you can bring forth, whether that's sporting or art or different skills, we know that there's value in that.
I think it is about having a broad range of activities on your CV (curriculum vitae) as well that you can offer.
I think volunteering always shows that you actually you’re keen to participate with people in the community as well and so I'd encourage people to get out there and just be active in the community.
In addition, when you do come if you do go for an interview, do not only focus on the education that you've got, do talk about the different skills and things you're interested in.
If I'm interviewing someone it's an attitude as well, if you've got a positive attitude and you're not scared to try and tackle some of the stigma issues that we face on a daily basis then that's great, if you can see that the population, everybody has strengths you know so as someone's got a mental illness don't see them as having a mental illness, yes there are some concerns that they're facing with their life but what are their strengths what can we bring out for them.
I think some really good advice for health students who are wanting to work in my area of work is really to get as much experience as you can while you're at university through doing volunteer work. Go beyond what the university offers in terms of placements and things like that go out there and get some other experience.
Also when you're considering getting a job, really try and think about what your generic skills are and try to relate them to the role. So kind of step outside the square when you think about employment opportunities. Just be really flexible in the role and willing to take on new knowledge and have a willingness to learn on the job.
Get a good overarching background of life in the first place, because the people who we see here are real people in the real world. Chronic diseases, everybody's got a comorbidity nobody's just got one problem they've got multiple issues in their life that they're dealing with.A good background in behaviour, mental health side of things is really important because there's no point in educating somebody or didactically talking to people if they don't have the skills to be able to deal with it as well.
Or you can be able to teach them some of those behavioural modification skills and changes, and be able to connect and be able to make it relevant to them.
Typical messaging is there's no point in telling somebody to give up smoking if it's not relevant to them, or they’ll just wall you off and walk away.
A background in understanding a bit about behaviour change is really important for education.
Also just as I said, know people have comorbidities and lots of them. It’s no good just being an absolute specialist in one field and know absolutely nothing about anything else because they all interrelate to each other. Sometimes our role isn't about getting perfect management for their heart disease or their diabetes but about having it managed enough so they can deal with their other problem like their cancer treatment
There's a bigger world to think of as well.