The Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS)
The Royal Flying Doctor Service is a unique Australian health service.

Throughout Queensland, the RFDS attends to more than 76,500 patients every year including emergency evacuations, aeromedical transfers, primary health care clinics and medical advice.

In Queensland there are eight RFDS Bases, located in Charleville, Mount Isa, Cairns, Townsville, Rockhampton, Bundaberg, Longreach and Brisbane.

We have a fleet of 12 aircraft domiciled across each of our Bases. These are modern pressurised aircraft which are reconfigured with highly technical medical equipment to provide intensive treatment and care to all our patients.

RFDS Flight Nurses
Our flight nurses are highly skilled professionals providing health services to people living working and travelling through rural and remote parts of Queensland.

As a flight nurse with the RFDS you will undertake aeromedical retrievals, primary responses, child health clinics, immunisation programs, school health screening, health promotion ‘field days’ and general practice clinics. This makes for a challenging, varied and interesting work environment. At a ‘non clinic’ base the work involves solely aero-medical retrievals.

Flight Nursing is a specialist nursing field where Registered Nurses provide nursing and health care in an aeromedical environment. The Royal Flying Doctor Service provides two main types of services.

Emergency Care:
Flight Nursing combines a number of nursing skills in the airborne environment. Unlike a controlled setting in a hospital, the aircraft and ambulance environment offers the challenge of delivery of care in an unstable and confined space with limited resources and personnel. RFDS aircraft are flying emergency departments and are equipped accordingly.

Flight Nurses are exposed to a diverse range of patient conditions caused by trauma, accidents and medical conditions affecting babies, children and the elderly. Flight Nurses operate in an autonomous manner with medical officers being present when clinically required.

Primary Health Care:
Flight Nurses and Medical Officers provide primary health care clinics to people who live on remote stations, communities and townships. Clinics include a General Medical clinic, Child and Family Health clinic, Immunisation programs, Health Promotion and Field days.

What Qualifications are required for a flight nurse?
Essential:
General and Midwifery

Desirable:

• Retrieval Base:
  Emergency and/or Intensive Care Nursing
• Retrieval and Clinic Base:
  Emergency and/or Intensive Care Nursing
  Child and Family Health (or interested in working towards)
  Immunisation endorsement (or interested in working towards)

All permanent flight nurses are required to complete the Rural and Isolated Practice Nurse Course.

What type of work do Flight Nurses do?
Flight Nursing is a specialist nursing field where Registered Nurses provide nursing and health care in an aero-medical environment.

The Royal Flying Doctor Service provides two main types of service:

Emergency Services
Primary response
A primary response is when the RFDS attends to a scene where there is no health facility or health personnel. Of the 47,500 patients attended to each year by the RFDS approximately 7500 are primary responses. The most common reasons for emergency responses are for heart attack patients and car accident victims. At each RFDS Base a medical officer, flight nurse and pilot, using a designated aircraft, are available to respond to calls 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Retrieval of patients from secondary hospitals to tertiary referral centres
Patients are airlifted by the RFDS when they need to access specialist facilities or are referred to a tertiary medical facility. This service is provided from each RFDS Base.

Medical advice via remote consultation
Our Flight Nurses provide advice to consumers, rural doctors, remote area nurses and indigenous health workers via telephone and video conferencing link up.

Primary Health Care Services
Primary Health Care Clinics
For many remote and isolated communities the RFDS is the local GP. Even though the RFDS may only fly in once a month many communities throughout Queensland would be without access to medical facilities if the RFDS did not provide this vital service.
Child Health Clinics
RFDS flight nurses are fully qualified child health nurses and are a valuable resource and support to families living in rural and remote Queensland.

Nurses provide a comprehensive child health service incorporating:

• routine physical assessments of children
• childhood immunisations
• health education and advice to parents and carers
• referral to other health professionals
• counselling and acting as a confidant to parents and carers; and
• school health screening programs.

Immunisation Clinics
Immunisation rates of children living in areas where RFDS child health services are provided are some of the highest in the State. The Flight Nurses coordinate these clinics.

Health Promotion Fields Days
A major new development has been the holding of health promotion field days at smaller clinic locations. The field days have a focus on building skills to help people better manage health issues encountered in the remote context.

The incorporation of health promotion activities into RFDS service delivery not only broadens the role of all health staff but also provides a more comprehensive health service to consumers.

The RFDS holds field days in many remote locations including stations and homesteads.

What do you gain by becoming a flight nurse?
Employment with the RFDS provides a challenging and unique work experience. The work is interesting and varied, combining both emergency retrieval and primary health care services. Flight Nurses interact with many of Queensland’s rural and remote communities, meet the many colourful characters of the bush and enjoy the vastness of the outback from the air.

Our flight nurses gain amazing job satisfaction because of the autonomous nature of the work and the sense that they are really making a difference to the lives of people living in remote and isolated locations.

Flight nurses work with a range of people from pilots, doctors, allied health professionals, the emergency services and Queensland Health practitioners.

When you work with the RFDS you get to experience a whole lot more than any other nursing job. You can visit the remote aboriginal communities on Mornington Island see the red dusty sands at the Birdsville Races or experience the famous canoe races at Gregory Downs.

The RFDS offers you a nursing career of a lifetime – you will make lasting friends, visit places that many people have never been to or even heard of and you will be providing health services to people who need it most.

Where can I get more information on flight nursing?
Visit the Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia website: www.flyingdoctor.net