Go Rural Virtually
Go Rural Virtually (GRV) is an online forum for health students, from all disciplines and year levels, to come together and learn about the day-to-day realities of practicing and living in remote and rural locations.
As a regular attendee of the GRV webinars, Georgia Posar who is a 4th year Psychology student at the University of Queensland found:
“The GRV webinars are a great resource! The topics are interesting and relevant to students in the health faculty. The guest speakers are well-chosen and always engaging, and are very open to questions, the students are interactive, and it’s easy to post questions in the chat”.
21 October 2024
TO
Everyone
No matter where you are
FROM
Rural & Remote Australia
Georgia Posar with OT student Liz Schultz at GROW Rural Central Queensland 2023
When the COVID-19 pandemic prevented Health Workforce Queensland from being able to deliver its face-to-face programs to health students they created Go Rural Virtually (GRV) as a way for students to virtually connect with rural communities and explore the issues affecting them. Through a series of interactive online forums, GRV has ‘virtually’ taken students to Longreach, Mount Isa and an Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Service based in St George. Local health professionals living and working in these communities spoke insightfully about the benefits and challenges of rural practice and the different personal and professional pathways they’ve taken. More recently GRV broadened its vision to introduce topics not always covered by academic course work which gave rise to in-depth conversations on disability, mental health and drug dependency.
The webinars also enable students to connect with rural speakers drawn from a cross-section of health settings, as well as community organisations, and individuals with lived experience. For Georgia, this has allowed her to:
“Learn about the challenges and highlights of a practicing rural doctor for RFDS. In another [webinar], I listened to the raw, real-life experiences of people who suffer with addiction”.
Sarah Laxton, a Mental Health Nurse based in Cooktown who was a guest speaker for the Mental Health in the Bush webinar shared:
“This event was well organised and facilitated with the conversational approach to creating a real sense of intimacy allowing people to be vulnerable in their stories”.
All GRV webinars are recorded and accessible via the Health Student webpage on Health Workforce Queensland’s website - https://www.healthworkforce.com.au/health-students/go-rural-virtually
The next Go Rural Virtually webinar will look into clinical practice within correctional facilities on 29 October 2024. Details for this session will be available on the website from 1 October.
For more information contact:
Future Workforce Team
futureworkforce@healthworkforce.com.au
07 3015 7800
