The Rural Portfolio aims to improve health outcomes for rural and remote communities in Queensland as well as encourage health students to consider a career in rural health. We do this by running fundraising events for our rural charity partners, seminar and information nights, rural clinical skills trips, rural high school visits, providing bush bursaries for rural summer placements, subsidising rural conferences such as RDAQ for health students and facilitating students to immerse themselves in rural health careers through the Longlook program.
Rural Clinical Skills Trip
Hope4Health runs a series of rural clinical skills trips each year, to allow students to become actively involved in the rural health experience. While on rural trips students will be able to learn skills vital for any rural or urban medical practitioner including emergency airway management, suturing techniques, IV cannulation, advanced life support…and more!
The trips also provide a unique opportunity to become exposed to what life is like as a rural health professional. To encourage and maximise this exposure, the trips combine the educational aspects with a variety of social events and local highlights, as well as opportunities to meet and chat with local physicians and health professionals.
Each year trips are run to Stanthorpe, Warwick, Toowoomba and Kingaroy. 2020 will be in inaugural trip to Dalby.
Rural High School Visits
An initiative of the NRHSN and Health Careers in the Bush the rural high school visits occur twice a year in which health students from Hope4Health visit rural high schools to be health student mentors for students considering a career in health.
The program is extremely well received by the students with many having fun doing plastering, strapping and testing reflexes while learning about the different pathways possible to obtain a career in health. The volunteers have a great time interacting with the students while having the opportunity to see rural Australia.
The trips are a lot of fun and involve educating high school students about a career in health plus you also get the chance to see the sights of rural Queensland. We are looking for enthusiastic students from any health discipline to attend the trips.
Bush Bursaries
The Bush Bursary is an exciting initiative organised by Hope4Health in 2018 to encourage more students to do their summer placements in rural Queensland. Rural summer placements are fantastic opportunities for students to live in a rural environment over a 4-week period to experience life in the country and to gain various learning experiences. Students receive bursaries worth $500 to support them during their summer placement out in the bush. The money is raised through the Bush Bash, an event that is well-received by students.
Collaboration
Hope4Health’s Rural Portfolio collaborates closely with rural health clubs from other Queensland universities who share a common vision. These include BUSHFIRE (Bond University), RHINO (James Cook University) and TROHPIQ (University of Queensland). In addition, Hope4Health is part of National Rural Health Students’ Network (NRHSN).
NRHSN is a multidisciplinary health network comprising of 27 Rural Health Clubs (RHCs) located at Universities around Australia, in every State and Territory. The NRHSN covers medical, nursing and allied health courses, and comprises a member base of more than 9,000 students from the Rural Health Clubs.
The activities of our Rural Portfolio are supported by a number of rural organisations for health professionals. These include;
- Health Workforce Queensland (HWQ) – a not-for-profit rural workforce agency, funded by the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing. HWQ’s role is to facilitate the recruitment, retention and quality of general medical practitioners (GPs) and primary health care teams in rural and remote Queensland communities.
- Rural Doctors’ Association of Queensland (RDAQ) – the representative body for rural doctors practicing in Queensland. RDAQ is proactive in promoting the merits of rural medicine and offer support for rural trips and student registrations to their annual conference.
- Rural Medical Education Australia (RMEA) – offers regional, rural and remote training opportunities in both General Practice and regional hospital settings. RMEA supports training towards both RACGP and ACRRM Fellowships and recognises the special needs of Overseas Trained Doctors, Australian Defence Force Registrars and Queensland Health’s Rural Generalists and Bonded Scholars.