JCU: Murtupuni Centre for Rural & Remote Health

24/03/2026

📅 Save the date & register now!

🌱 Connecting Across Wide Horizons: Innovate, Adapt & Thrive

The Allied Health professionals of North West Queensland are proud to host the Outback Allied Health Forum 2026. This year’s theme brings together allied health practitioners, services, educators and researchers working across outback and rural communities, to connect and share insights on delivering care across vast and diverse regions.

🕠 Time: Thursday, July 30 at 10 am to Friday, July 31 at 3 pm
📍 Location: JCU MCRRH - Tjirtamai Hall
🎟️ Register : https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/outback-allied-health-forum-tickets-1983592194651
➡️ Further Details : https://www.crrh.jcu.edu.au/conferences/outback-allied-health-forum/outback-allied-health-forum-2026/

18/02/2026

📣Upcoming Northern Queensland Regional Training Hubs Supervisor Session

NQRTH and JCU MCRRH are excited to invite you to an upcoming supervisor session with Dr Aaron Hollins.

🎯 Dr Hollins shares practical strategies for supporting learners in difficulty

🕠 Time: 5:30–7:00pm
📍 Location: Lecture Room 1, MCRRH main building (behind the helipad). Teams option available.
🥗 Catering: Finger‑food dinner with gluten‑free and vegetarian options.
👥 Who should attend: all professionals supervising students, registrars and recent graduates.
📜 CPD: Certificate provided

17/02/2026

STUDENT PLACEMENT | An excellent day had by all at Ngukuthati Children & Family Centre. A big thank you to the Ngukuthati team for opening your space to our students on placement and our local educators. The opportunity for our students to gain meaningful, hands‑on experience in community is something we truly value. 🏥🧡

🌟 Play Group Visitors 🌟

We love welcoming the students and clinical educators from the JCU: Murtupuni Centre for Rural & Remote Health to Ngukuthati Play Group 💛

While on placement in Mount Isa, they’ve been supporting our families with gentle developmental check-ins through play — looking at how little ones are growing, talking, moving and learning 🧸🗣️👣

It’s relaxed, child-friendly and a great chance to yarn and ask questions.

Big thank you to the Murtupuni team for your regular visits and care for our community 🙌🏾✨

06/02/2026

📣 Upcoming North West Hospital and Health Service Education Session

NQRTH and JCU MCRRH are excited to support NWHHS's latest education initiative, presented by Endocrinologist Professor John Prins.

🕠 Time: 5:30–7:00pm
📍 Location: Lecture Room 1, MCRRH main building (behind the helipad). Teams option available.
🥗 Catering: Finger‑food dinner from 5:15pm with gluten‑free and vegetarian options.
👩‍⚕️ Who should attend - medical officers/GPs, diabetes educators, midwives, maternity health workers and medical, nursing and allied health students.

A great opportunity to learn, connect, and strengthen local clinical practice.

16/01/2026

NURSING | Congratulations to the program leaders, facilitators and all the participants in the Tjurtu First Nations Nursing and Midwifery Leadership Program.🎉

Led by Professor Roianne West, this program strengthens leadership skills grounded in cultural knowledge and supports a more equitable and culturally strong future for First Nations healthcare.

QLD: The Tjurtu First Nations Nursing and Midwifery Leadership Program aims to build leadership skills grounded in cultural knowledge and promote health equity in First Nations communities across Queensland.

It provides participants with clinical leadership training, community engagement projects, and mentorship from experienced First Nations healthcare leaders.

Learn more: 🔗 https://bit.ly/4aZre51

16/01/2026

RURAL MEDICINE | A warm welcome to the 2026 medical interns as they begin their year with North West Hospital and Health Service. It is great to see both new and returning faces ready to gain hands on experience and build their skills in rural and remote medicine.

🚑👩⚕️👨⚕️ Ready to roll, Medical Interns of 2026! 👨⚕️👩⚕️🚑

After completing a full week of orientation, our six new medical interns are officially ready to get stuck in at North West HHS 🙌

They’ve navigated a big first week, a wet-season welcome, and everything that comes with starting work in a rural and remote health service — and now they’re heading into clinical rotations across the North West.

From Monday, they’ll be gaining hands-on experience, working alongside our incredible clinical teams, and building skills you simply don’t get in metro hospitals.

Welcome to the team — we’re excited to have you on board 🧡

17/12/2025

RURAL MEDICINE | It was great to see Ella Reeves one of the fifth-year medical students from James Cook University, shining a spotlight on what the recent endorsement of rural medicine as a specialty practice means for students looking to pursue medicine in the bush. This year, Murtupuni has been privileged to support Ella throughout her placement in Mount Isa as she experienced firsthand the rewards and challenges of rural practice. 🩺🌾

🏥 In September, the Medical Board of Australia and the Federal Government endorsed and approved rural medicine becoming a field of speciality practice.

Ella Reeves is a fifth-year medical student from James Cook University, who spent a year's worth of placements in Mount Isa. 👏

"Everyone was so welcoming, everyone was so lovely. Mount Isa snared me in," she said.

"It's a lot different practicing medicine inland than practicing it on the coast, way more limited in terms of traveling and supply chains. The skills of the doctors here were really good in that they had to be prepared to handle critically ill patients for longer times."

💬 Ms Reeves was happy to hear rural doctors were being recognised as specialists, saying it makes the pathway to her future career clearer.

"I'm really excited that something that I want to do is now formalised. Before you had to jump through some hoops, now we have a designated training pathway."

Although she believes the change will likely attract more doctors to the bush, Ms Reeves said there was still work to do in supporting families to move.

"I'm a single person, so it's very easy for me to make that decision, I'm very privileged. Lots of my colleagues have families or partners that can't."

📻 Listen to ABC North West QLD: https://ab.co/3mRJWAn
📰 Subscribe to our weekly newsletter here by selecting ABC North West Queensland: https://ab.co/NorthWestNewsletter

17/12/2025

NURSING | From building their own career to now nurturing the next generation—what an incredible journey for Roianne West. We’re thrilled to see their legacy continue through teaching and mentorship 🌍

Twenty-five years after graduating with her nursing degree in Mount Isa, Professor Roianne West has returned home to teach the next generation of nurses and midwives. 👏

“Coming home to teach and lead from my own Country is deeply significant. This is where my family, my ancestors, and my community are," Professor West said.

The James Cook University Professor of Nursing and Midwifery wants to see the Indigenous healthcare workforce increase in the North West. 🏥

💬 She said First Nations midwives and nurses make up less than one per cent of the national workforce.

"My legacy is ensuring that we are genuinely growing our own First Nations nurses and midwives because we have 50 per cent of the hospital and health services occupied by First Nations people," she said.

Professor West is Queensland’s first Aboriginal Professor of Nursing. Her mother worked as an Aboriginal Health Worker for more than four decades and was the first Aboriginal Health Worker in Queensland to be registered as a health practitioner. 👏

📻 Listen to ABC North West QLD: https://ab.co/3mRJWAn
📰 Subscribe to our weekly newsletter here by selecting ABC North West Queensland: https://ab.co/NorthWestNewsletter

01/12/2025

REMOTE PLACEMENT | this is why supporting remote clinical placements are so worthwhile.

“It was during this placement that I realised rural and remote practice wasn’t just a placement it was the kind of career I wanted.”
Read Erin Weekes beautiful story about her journey from Brisbane to now loving her life in remote Queensland.
Special thanks to the Weipa community and the local JCU MCRRH team for always making the students feel so welcome and supported on their clinical placements.

05/11/2025

STUDENT STORY | Ravi’s experience in Mount Isa

Our students have such positive things to say about their time on placement in Mount Isa. See how much 6th year Medical Student Ravi appreciated the opportunity to live and work in the Mount Isa community on his clinical placement earlier this year.
Our continued appreciation goes out to all the staff at North West Hospital and Health Service and the local Mount Isa community members who make the students time here so rewarding.

Sixth-year JCU medical student Ravi talks about his rural placement experience in Mt Isa.Find out more about JCU: https://www.jcu.edu.au/ ___________________...

25/08/2025

YACCA LIBRARY | study, work and browse

Does this sound like you ?
🔸A student in a health field
🔸Local and visiting Health Professional
🔸Local and visiting Health Researcher
🔸Non-Clinical staff working in the health sector.

Come and checkout the Yacca Library! Located next to the helipad behind the hospital.

A collaboration between Murtupuni Centre for Rural and Remote Health (MCRRH) and the North West Hospital and Health Service (NWHHS), Yacca Library has a curated collection of over 3000 physical items and access to a comprehensive collection of eResources and support services that aid students and health workers across the North West.

Maybe you just need a quiet place to study, relax or hold a meeting ? Yacca Library can help you with that too. Enjoy a quite open plan space or book our Yacca Tutorial Room.
Contact us or pop into the library for a chat.

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25/07/2025

AYRI | Day 3 - Plenary 4

Our last plenary of AYRI 2025, “Sustainability in rural medicine”, chaired by Prof. Richard Hays (Murtupuni, JCU). Panel members include Dr David Rimmer (CWHHS), Dr Michael Clements (RACGP), Dr John Douyere (ACRRM), and Mr Phillip Kemp (Mount Isa community and consumer representative).