In December 2015 CareFlight was fortunate to be able to conduct their study day for Gove based flight nurses at the Flinders NT Clinical Education Training Facility in Nhulunbuy.

The study day included reflective presentations from Gove based nurses on some of the most challenging aeromedical retrievals they had each undertaken, including acute renal failure in children, respiratory distress in newborn babies, cardiomyopathy in a postpartum mother and early diagnosis of rheumatic heart disease.  A presentation and discussion on human factors and team work was also included and flight nurses were put through their paces with a variety of clinical simulations. The objectives of these sessions was to further enhance the non-technical skills required for the role as a flight nurse and managing a critically unwell patient in the immediate absence of a doctor.

The Gove base is unique in that no flight doctors are based on the Gove Peninsula, hence the flight nurses exercise their highly developed critical care and emergency nursing skills on a constant basis.

Previously training was held in the CareFlight hangar at the Gove airport, which had limited space and privacy to facilitate clinical simulation sessions and formal presentations.

CareFlight is very thankful to Flinders University for the use of their amazing facility. Future CareFlight training days at the Flinders NT Clinical Education Training Facility in Nhulunbuy plan to involve Flinders medical students, clinicians from Gove hospital and other local health services.

This is a working example of a collaborative approach both encouraged and welcomed by Flinders NT in Nhulunbuy.

Author: Jodie Martin, Clinical Educator – NT Operations, CareFlight