'It is a privilege': Bicheno nurse nabs top national award

Registered nurse Katie Pennington was awarded the Aurora Award at the Council of Remote Area Nurses Australia (CRANAplus) conference, an honour she said was "a privilege".

"I couldn't have achieved what I have if other people hadn't already forged the way," Mrs Pennington said.

"And in the sadness of the referendum outcome, I think the award belongs to both me and my Malpa's. Malpa is a Pitjantjatjara word that means 'friends on the journey'.

"And I've had a lot of Malpas on my journey in remote health, so it is a shared honour and a privilege."

Mrs Pennington said her passion for remote medicine began in 2000 when she was working as an army medic in a regional community.

"No two days are ever the same," she said.

"You have to be a specialist generalist. So I think the diversity of the work, as well as the fact you are caring for people who also live in proximity to you, is what I love.

"When you do a good job, you see it reflected in their lives. And if you don't do the best job, you will also see that. So you get that external feedback that can drive you to improve your practice."

Mrs Pennington was also awarded a fellowship with CRANAplus for her research examining how nurses in remote Australia work with medicines.

"The reason I started the research project is because, at the time, I was working as a registered nurse in Western Australia, and I became aware that there were some tasks that I was required to do on a daily basis that were not necessarily supported through legislation," she said.

"This placed myself and my colleagues in a very legally tenuous situation.

"And it also created some huge barriers for the isolated populations that we've worked with to access to health care and medicines."

Mrs Pennington's research found 28 variations in how registered nurses could work with medicines in Australia.

"These practices are most common in remote areas of Australia simply because there are no other health care providers," she said.

"Interestingly, Tasmania's medicines and poisons legislation has some of the most limiting provisions for how registered nurses work with medicines, which also greatly limits our capacity to contribute to the health care of our community.

"So we really need some reforms in Tasmania to make sure that our medicines and poisons legislation reflects contemporary nursing practice."