Karen Orchard

1. Tell us about yourself and some career/life highlights

My name is Karen Orchard, I am mum to 3yo Ella, and wife to Geordie. I have a Bachelor of Nursing through Flinders University of South Australia (1999), and completed a Masters of Nursing (Clinical Education) with University of New England in 2017. We have lived in country South Australia for a while now, having spent time in Ceduna and Roxby Downs, and we are now based in Wallaroo.

Professionally I have had opportunities to work over a vast range of environments. I have worked in private hospitals, major public hospitals, small rural hospitals, remote hospitals, Aboriginal primary health, prison health, nurse education, and have worked in Universities as a clinical facilitator, tutor, and in the simulation labs as a nurse teacher.

Rural and remote nursing is a passion of mine, having spent most of my nursing, and most of my life in rural and remote areas. I believe nurses working in these environments need to be acknowledged for the incredible work they do. They do such a brilliant job in areas which can be challenging physically and complex emotionally, environmentally isolated, and often with such limited resources.

One of my career highlights I would like to share came about just recently. I was given the role of Clinical Facilitator for a newly graduated RN. She had decided to undertake nursing studies after the experience she had a child visiting her mother in hospital. Her mother had a diagnosis of cancer, and after a series of treatments, passed away in 2008. The care from the nurses for her mother, and the overall experience she had was what made her decide to be a nurse. The career highlight for me in this particular situation is I was one of those nurses caring for her mother. Neither of us realised this until this discussion happened, being more than ten years earlier, but I was able to remember her mother’s name, and the little town where they had lived, the hospital room she spent most of her time in, and other funny incidental things that happened.

It was such a special moment for me to realise the profound impacts that we can have as nurses in our everyday practice, without even realising it

2. Did you study online or on campus? 

I studied my Masters online with UNE, with a couple of workshop days held in Armidale. It was challenging for me to take on study again. It was 15 years since I had completed my Bachelor degree, which I undertook full time on campus as a fresh faced school leaver. Going back to study and trying to find a work/life/study balance was very complex. During my master’s study, I also got married, had a baby, moved house (town and region) 3 times, and changed jobs 3 times too. Despite all of this, I found the online learning platform UNE had to offer was simply fantastic to use, and was far superior to anything I had seen or used previously.  Even with the technology challenges of living in remote areas, I had no issues with the online learning environment that was created by UNE.

3. How was your experience studying either on campus or online?

My learning experience would not have been what it was without the support of Dr Yoni Luxford as my Course Coordinator. Yoni had been a lecturer in my bachelor degree 15 years earlier in Adelaide, so I was most excited to see her name in my course information on enrolment. She was never too far away for a chat, and was highly supportive and interested in what my research was showing. When things became too hard, she was there to help problem solve, and come up with a solution that helped me continue on with my studies. In some ways it felt like she was my loudest cheerleader.

I believe the quality of educators in the nursing stream at UNE was outstanding. There was obviously a high level of dedication to research and development, with many published research papers coming from the hard work of the educators at UNE.

4. What was your end goal when you started your degree?

Initially my reasons for taking on nursing education as a career option revolved strongly around the experiences I had as a student and a newly developing RN. I didn’t necessarily have an ‘end goal’ career in mind, but rather I wanted the skills to empower other nurses working with students and developing nurses in a positive and supportive way, and to work at creating positive changes in workforce culture.

5. How are you using what you learned in your degree in your professional life?

Currently I am blending two different job roles. I am acting in the position of Nurse Educator for the Rural Support Service of South Australia. In this role I work in a small team, providing education and support to the nurses across all of the 6 Regional Local Health Networks of South Australia, plus contribute to work and meeting groups in an education advisory and support role. My second job role is a clinically based role, as a level 1 Registered Nurse in Wallaroo Hospital, in the Yorke and Northern Local Health Network, where I work across the acute ward, emergency department, and day patient chemotherapy unit.

Clinical Education is a set of skills I have found to be transferable across all the areas I have worked. I have been able to use these skills in working with students, new staff, patients, visitors, and I have even been able to apply it to non- work situations. For example, I was able to go to my daughter’s childcare and talk to the educators and other kids about the importance of washing your hands to stop the spread of germs.

6. What are your plans for the future?

Right at this present point in time there is a lot of anxiety, confusion and fear in all of our communities. Looking to the future, I can only hope this experience starts to help us develop a sense of community again, with people looking out for their neighbours and starting to care for one another. Professionally, I hope to continue in a nurse educator role, and be given the opportunities to continue to use the skills that I learned through my time at UNE. Perhaps there may be further study on the horizon too, who knows what may develop?

7. What does living in South Australia mean to you?

I think we are so lucky to be living in South Australia. Even more so, we are lucky to be living in rural South Australia. We are often seen as the ‘poor country cousins’ to the eastern states, but we have so many hidden treasures. I have been fortunate enough to live in, or travel through every region of SA, and they are all as beautiful and rich in nature as one another, but also quite different. Even the desert in Roxby has so many little secrets to share. I can’t wait to take my little girl exploring this fantastic state we live in.