| By Wiphaphorn Jiaoram

Wiphaphorn Jiaoram, our Renal Registered Nurse shares her joy of being a nurse, caring for others and travelling to remote areas. 

Caring for others brings me a lot of happiness and fulfillment. This led me to become a nurse, a profession I decided on when I was in high school. To get a head start in my career, I did a school-based traineeship as an Assistant in Nursing (AIN). 

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The perks of working as a remote nurse is you get to travel around.

Fast forward years later, I am now working as a Renal Registered Nurse. I took up the challenge of remote nursing and it has opened my eyes to various ways nursing can be practiced. As a remote nurse, I see beauty in everything. I also found that many responsibilities are involved in working remotely. 

Whilst some may shudder at the idea of working remotely, I enjoyed the challenge and found it rewarding. The way rural and remote nursing works is totally different from how it works in the city. The experience as a remote nurse also made me discover myself – I learned how to step out of my comfort zone.

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A cassowary, a flightless bird.

One of the best experiences as a remote nurse is being able to work with our Indigenous people. Not only that, some of the adventures I had outside of nursing involves volunteering within the community. I learned so much and travelled to places I would not have seen if I did not take up rural and remote nursing. I have been to all the towns between Melbourne and everything in between Cairns, Thursday Island, Darwin, Katherine, Tennant Creek, Alice Springs, Uluru, Adelaide, and Tasmania.         

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Uluru, or Ayers Rock is a massive sandstone monolith in the heart of the Northern Territory.

I remember when Alliance Rural and Remote Health sent me to the Renal Conference as part of my educational support, I won a giant Toblerone chocolate. It was wonderful and hard to believe! I donated the chocolate to a children’s church, and they were so excited. I am also grateful to the agency for sending me to the conference because I met so many nurses whom I worked with in various locations while on contacts around Australia. It was nice to see familiar faces!