Set your goals and cliche as cliche as it is enjoy that journey. So don't be in a hurry to get to the end goal because you will learn so much along the way and align yourself with people that share your values and that are driven and, want to see you succeed.

I think there's a lot of value in telling people what your goals are.

Hello and welcome back to the High Performance Lesley Podcast. I'm so excited, we've got an incredible guest, actually amazing guest today that kick started this whole journey with me like two, three years ago. We've got the amazing Emily Wilson here with us from Adelaide at the moment, coming from Adelaide.

Emily, welcome to the podcast, how are you? Thanks, I'm really well, thanks. Oh, I'm so excited to talk. So, today we're talking all things RFDS and nursing, but before we get there, let me tell you a little bit about Emily. Emily is a registered nurse and midwife, currently living in Adelaide, South Australia, and is a flight nurse with the Royal Flight Doctor Service.

She's a country girl from Queensland and had aspired to work for the RFDS service. Since her graduate year in a small country hospital. I love that so much. She's worked in a diverse range of settings including small rural hospitals and tertiary hospitals in Darwin, Canberra and Adelaide in mostly ICU and maternity care.

She's completed her postgraduate studies in public health and critical care nursing. She's been working for the RFDS service for two years now and loves the opportunity to get back into country areas, utilize her skill set in a different way each day. So many questions. Oh my goodness. Let's kickstart with Where we always start, which is at the very beginning, just to quote the sound of music, let's start at the very beginning.

Let's talk about where you started your nursing career and like what led you into becoming a nurse up in Queensland back in the day. I have a very distinct memory of telling my parents when I finished high school that I wanted to go and do my nursing and dad told me, Oh, Emily, you're going to be a terrible nurse.

You're just going to cry all the time. I'm quite a sensitive person is probably where he was coming from. So I took a gap year and went and got a job at my local nursing home and worked in the dementia wing there for 12 months. And that was either going to make or break my journey, I think, into nursing and evidently it made it, it was the foundation on, on providing care and really, really getting a feel that I loved going to work most days and being able to provide yeah, good care.

I was 17. I was very naive and went in. With Huge amounts of nativity, I suppose. Mm-Hmm. But that really kickstarted my nursing journey and gave me that motivation to go and do my, my Bachelor of Nursing and Midwifery in Brisbane. And yeah, it kind of went on from there in terms of, went into the country.

For my grad year in central Queensland, and that was a very fiercely protected maternity unit, which was a wonderful foundation for me coming from a tertiary hospital in Brisbane. So to have that, that mentorship from some very, very experienced nurses and midwives in quality patient care was absolutely wonderful for my early career.

I then went up to Darwin and did some nursing and mid up in the territory, which was such an incredible experience. I learned a lot about myself. I learned a lot about diverse nursing practice and adapting to different cultures and different personalities as well. From Darwin, I came down to Adelaide.

I had two years in Adelaide. Mostly in maternity care here in a tertiary hospital. And then I went across to Canberra and I did my transition into ICU and was supported by such a wonderful team. And that was quite a change coming from quite a strong women's health maternity focus. I was quite nervous about that, but.

The support I had was really, really wonderful. And then came back to Adelaide and I've done a bit of locum work up in the Riverland. So a little bit of country work again, which I love. I love getting back into the country areas and you can just get such a wonderful experience. I'm getting out of the city and was working a mixture of ICU and maternity care back here.

And then my dream job opportunity came up to apply for a job with the Royal Flying Doctor Service. For And I can say it was one of the proudest days of my life when I got the phone call to say. come on, fly with us. So it's been two years now that I've been flying with the RFDS and it's been just an incredible journey.

Wow. I just got goosebumps when you said that there, I was like, Oh my God. Like, do they actually say that? Come fly with us? No. I

feel like that should on their, you know, recruitment calls. Oh my goodness. What I love about your career is like the permission and the exploration that you've allowed yourself to. Indulgent, right? And I know like, you know, with your partner, you move around and things like that, but also being so open and flexible to the opportunities that arise as you do move and pivot and see opportunity.

And, you know, I'm not saying that it's easy in any way, shape or form, because we have our own stuff to work through as we navigate those transitions. kickstart in? Maternity. Right. You started off in maternity and you then did a couple of years maternity, I think three or four years, correct? Yeah, that's right.

And that, and then you pivoted into ICU. 'cause a lot of people think that those kind of transitions and those shifts are like, you just can't do them. You know, we, talk about that a along on the podcast. So what was your lived experience of that and what do you think helped you transition and pivot?

Working with the RFDS and being a flight nurse has been a long term goal since uni, essentially. And I'm a huge advocate for goal setting, and we can go into this a bit later. But I've had goals since I finished uni to get where I am today. And while I love midwifery and I love the care that I was providing, I knew it was time to take that next step into crit care nursing.

If I wanted to achieve the goal of flying as a flight nurse. So it was uncomfortable. And I felt like I was getting out of something that I was really passionate about. But it was a really good opportunity to diversify. And I was really supported in that with the transition program. I think. While it was uncomfortable, it was a pivotal point because if I didn't have that goal to say it's time you need to get this experience under your belt, then I wouldn't have been able to move into the intensive care program. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that you talking about goals is so important. I think the RFDS pathway for most that, want to pursue that appears kind of quite. Clear and linear, like in terms of like what you need to collect and the experience and so on so forth, maybe unlike other potential pathways that are not as clearly defined, like RFDS, I think has done quite a good job at making very crystal clear.

You need X, Y, and Z. And I love that you mentioned there that it's all about having that goal. in the future, and then almost like reverse engineering, well I'm gonna need this, and I'm gonna need that, and then finding the opportunities, and I did just an episode on this being opportunistic in your nursing career, and just jumping on those opportunities as they arise, because you just don't know when you'll see them again.

Right. So I love that you did that and then didn't have that deep attachment to the specialty or to the workplace in particular, you kind of had this bigger, broader vision and goal. And that's really like, whenever you think of a high performing nurse, you think, well, ultimately, that individual needs to have direction and purpose.

That's one of the main reasons why we have this situation that we have in healthcare is because a lot of us don't have. Direction and purpose. We don't have something we're actively working towards. So I really love that you highlighted that. And I think I remember in our coaching that you maybe told me at one point that you used to watch RFDS on the TV or something, is that right?

Like you used to watch the show. I'd love that. to admit that now. No, no, I think it's great. Sorry, I'm divulging your information, but I think that that future placement of your goal and like really just incrementally taking those steps and sometimes it feels like it's not a 10 percent jump, it's like a 0.

1 percent jump, right, but you're just allowing yourself. I'm curious about the personal journey, like approaching that goal, because sure, like on paper, right, I need four years here, I need two years there, I need this, that is kind of like clear and linear. What about the personal journey of like making that transition from med into ICU and then ICU into RFDS?

What did that bring up for you kind of personally as you navigated

that process? Two major things. I think predominantly I was concerned I would lose skills in midwifery care. And that I would become I guess, A novice again, that's probably the second thing. So that coming from a point where I was really comfortable, I was you know, getting into a point where I was really look up to, which sounds arrogant, but that's sort of the point where you get to from early career nurses looking into when you've been out a couple of years that.

You're really confident in that area, still a lot to learn, but you're gaining confidence and then going back into an area where I was a novice and I had very little confidence in that field. I think that that, that idea is something that keeps people stuck through their whole career, right? It's like, I'm too scared to be the new person again.

I'm scared to be the, the novice. Look at all the amazing experience that I have. How did you navigate that? And was it, was that the experience you had when you finally got to the RFDS? I think in terms of losing skills, it's funny. There's some skills that I certainly. Become a little less confident on, but it's, you don't forget there's some things that will stay with you for the rest of your life.

And when I did go back into maternity care, I needed a little bit of a refresher on what policies have changed. Is there, is the recommendation still the same as it was three years ago? And a little bit of practical refresher, but essentially. No, those, those foundations had remained with me and I used them in ICU as well.

What I probably didn't appreciate at the time is while I had very limited hard skills, maybe called on that in terms of critical care nursing, there was a lot of. Soft skills that I brought with me in terms of communicating with colleagues and patients, delegation, time management, having difficult conversations going into study again, that, that skill set was there ready to go.

So it wasn't like I was. starting a completely new career path. I still had the experience behind me. It was just about learning, learning a lot more skill set in the critical care field. Yeah. I think that sometimes we can really focus on our brain really loves to focus on the gap, right. And it doesn't really see how much we have gained and what we have.

And some of those quote unquote softer skills are like the skill set, like. I personally value so much more than like the quick care skill and being able to put something on a filter or a ventilator yada yada because those skills you use all the time and they're so core and fundamental to the work that we do, especially when you're flying in and flying out and you know it's meeting people for the first time and having to run clinics and you know build rapport really quickly.

All the technical skills that are amazing and they definitely help you do the job. But the connection piece, the communication, the act of listening, the empathy, the feeling your feelings, all of that soft stuff that we all want to avoid is so integral, right? Have you found that to be true in your experience?

Absolutely. Absolutely. And I felt really impatient initially to know it all, to be an expert straight away, whereas I don't think it matters whether you're five minutes, five months, 50 years out of uni or your career path. I pick up new things every single day and have preconceived ideas challenged. Yeah.

So I, don't think knowing it all is the goal. I think it's maintaining an open mind, being curious and being really open to new experiences. I love that so much. So good. Yeah. And I think that those quote unquote soft interpersonal skills really do help you navigate that because you allow yourself to just be curious and open to it rather than coming from that place of, you know, needing to know it all and that.

Yeah, it's, fascinating.

So tell us a little bit more about. RFDS and what it is like working for the RFDS. I know that's why everybody's here to hear your amazing story and to explore the RFDS and what that kind of looks like a day in the life. So let's start off with the, the kind of path or the pathway to get to be an RFDS nurse.

Now, there are lots of components and layers to that, but We've kind of covered it, but if you could give us some insight into what you can have had to be able to get to that point in terms of like years of experience and qualifications, if you're happy to share that, it will give the listener like an idea of like, oh, that's something that I could potentially work towards.

Yeah, absolutely. So there are some necessary attributes and then some desirable attributes that are required. And broadly speaking, it's required that you have. three to five years post grad experience in a critical care area. So that's emergency or ICU. It's desirable to have midwifery, which I do And that speaking from some bases might have a desirable requirement for you to have your midwifery for some bases across Australia.

It's, it's essential just because of the geographical location and the sort of patients that they're looking after. There is a, a requirement to have your postgraduate in crit care nursing dependent on what your background is. That might be in. ED or ICU nursing as well. I think it's also really important to be a critical thinker and have problem solving skills.

And while it's not, it's not always black and white. So we do work in the gray, so to speak, quite a lot. You're not just dealing with. Patient factors you're dealing with, whether you're dealing with light challenges with the plane being able to land, you're working with engineering, you're working with a pilot who has their own set of challenges.

So the logistics that go into it. Often factoring into your decision making as well. Yeah, well, oh my god, it already sounds like so interesting. I'm like feeling the anxiety of being on a plane and like having to navigate all the things. So all of those things are things that people can go out and collect and, and.

collate in their progression and it's maybe worthwhile checking the RFDS website and checking what that looks like in your local base in particular to you. I have a lot of conversations with people that want to work for RFDS. Now I'm gonna do my mid and I'm gonna do this and I'm like that's amazing but maybe you should just check for us.

Maybe you don't need all of the things, maybe you just need a couple of those things and you can keep building those skills and those tools. Do you think for you having mid was like, Advantageous. We always talk about unique selling points on this podcast. Do you think that it was something that really helped you get over the line and get into RFDS?

I think so. Yeah. I think it was a standout factor. Another thing I'd recommend is picking up the phone and calling the, the nurse coordinator at your local base. If you're in the region of one, because that's what I did a couple of years out. And that really helped guide what direction I was going to take.

I just had that phone call saying, look, I'm not ready yet, but can you give me some information on what direction. You would want in, in a future flight nurse and that's really helpful. Yeah, I love that. So good. And it's called the manager, right? Call the manager, having a little chat and future can improve your career in the line that it's great.

So tell us about a day in the life of RFDS flight nurse. What does it look like? I've got all these ideas about what it is. Let's dispel some of my ideas. Talk us through like a typical day. first of all, I should mention that RFDS is so much more than Aramid and we have a huge, collection of incredibly skilled professionals in terms of a dental program and mental health program, community health, primary health.

So it's not just the crit care skills that we need. There's a huge, a huge force of. Of other skills that are well utilized and very valued as well for people living in the outback that need those services. I love that. That's amazing. And for everybody listening that thinks, Oh my God, I never want to work in quick care, but I'd love to work for RFDS.

Absolutely. So good that you mentioned that. I love that. So yeah, talk us through what a quick care RFDS flight nurse looks like. A day. But in saying that also, you guys do quick care, but you also do like primary health. You do all of the things, right? So talk to us about that. Yeah, every day is a little bit different.

So a day in the life of a flight nurse, I clock onto work, we carry pages and we'll get the. If we get a page straight away, then we can start planning for that. If we don't, then there's as every other workplace, lots of checks and things to be done around the base with all the equipment that we have.

But once a tasking comes through, which comes through from our coordination center, it would have been assigned a triage score. So priority 1 requires a retrieval team and right down to a priority 7, which is taking people home, which I really love. I really love that part of the job to from South Australia, if it's.

It's a P2 or lower. It's a flight nurse only. So I would go and get all my equipment ready, make sure I've got my drug box ready to go. Make sure I've got the dilly bag, which is really important. It's got all the snacks. We can have big days, hydration is important. And then I would go and do a pre flight on that, individual.

So cooling up. the clinic or the hospital where that patient's at and just getting a bit more information, making sure that the patient's ready, ready for transfer. If they're not, we can link in the RFDS doctor or the doctor on base have a chat with the pilot, make sure that they're happy with the conditions that we've got.

Obviously, weather is a huge factor in where we, where we fly to. So they consider those sorts of things and our fuel requirements and weight balance, all the big numbers that. They do well, we'll leave that to them, we'll leave that to them. That's it. They can do that side of things. I'll stick to mine.

Most of the time we fly in the flattest PC 12, so we can carry two stretched patients or a seated patient. As well. So making sure that the planes are ready to go. We've got the monitoring and all our additional equipment on board. Oxygen is topped up and we generally have a either a 45 minute or an hour response time on those taskings.

So. If we're ready to go, doors closed, engine going, then that's, the goal by sort of the one hour mark, if it's a P2 or less, yeah. Amazing. Oh my God, it's so exciting. I feel excited just thinking about it. So how far would you fly from your base and to go and retrieve or pick up a patient from South Australia?

Hmm. So from South Australia, it's obviously different from state to state, but from South Australia, our shortest flight would be 20 minutes and our longest would be just short of three hours. Okay. Okay. And in terms of your working day, like, is that you working 10 hour days, 12 hour days? Sometimes do you come over?

It's a 10 hour day. I can imagine sometimes that you are maybe on a task or something and, you know, your day extends. That's it. That's just part of the job, you know, it's just, it's just part of it in, in a sense that you're in the middle of a job or the weather turns or you need to have extra time on the ground.

Then that. That can extend. I ran into the WA flight nurse at a conference last year, and she was asking about flight times. And I said, Oh yeah, our longest flight is, you know, sort of around that three hour mark. And she said, Oh, that's so cute. Obviously from WA there's huge distances to cover. Oh my goodness.

Oh my goodness. It is varied depending on where in Australia. Flexibility, adaptability, yep. Nothing you can do when you're on task and you're literally, you know, the way this turns like that. It just is what it is. So you just gotta walk like that. Okay. How fascinating.

So talk to us more about like some of these, the cases that you might go and like, you know respond to, for example out in the community and, and rurally, what typical things are you seeing?

Cause I know that one of your real passions is primary health you know, maternal health. So how does it all weave in with your critical care? And like you mentioned, you get to do all of these different things. So talk to us a little bit more about that when you go out, what are you seeing? . So it is a mixture of inter-hospital transfers.

So picking patients up from a country hospital and bringing them into tertiary care, and that might be a acute stemi, or it might be someone that requires oncology treatment. So it's not all utilizing the quick care skills every single minute of every day. But it is certainly the foundations of patient assessment is really important and being able and we develop those skills from the moment we start our nursing journey and being able to look at a patient and go, Oh, I don't like the look of you in terms of you look a bit gray or you're a bit sweaty, or you just, you look like you're in pain and being able to assess and make sure that you're implementing the care that that individual needs.

Other cares that can be involved is primary retrieval, so whether we're picking up from a station or a clinic that might be operated by a, like a remote area nurse where they're the only support they've got. Is three telehealth, so that can be quite challenging for them. And I've certainly got a lot of respect for nurses that work out in those really remote areas on their own or with, with another ran.

So kudos to them, honestly, it's a, it's a big job. Yeah. There's such autonomous workers as well, the remote area nurses. Right. I've worked with a few, I've worked with one in Canberra. And she, she was incredible. Her skillset was just insane. , like with the best nurses I've ever worked with. Incredible.

So we love you guys that are listening. Absolutely. And, and the same goes for, for clinicians that are working in rural hospitals because Oh my god, yeah. Yeah. You can hit that red button on the wall, but You might only get one or two other staff that are able to help. So, you know, they work with what they've got and they're very diverse in their skillset and they work really, really hard.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well,

so, talk to us about primary health work that you do, because I know when you go out there's a lot of primary, like you run clinics and correct me if I'm wrong, but there are clinics and primary health activities and working with culturally and linguistically diverse populations across Australia.

Talk to us more about that work, because I know that that's something you're super passionate about and what that kind of looks like when you go out to run these clinics. Yeah, absolutely. So RFDS had a quite a large input into COVID vaccinations when that was that was at the pinnacle of COVID. When was that?

A year and a half ago, a bit longer now. So that was a big a big primary health rollout as well. And we also have a really great team of GP, We're all generalists that are, that are based a little bit further north than Adelaide and they will run primary health clinics as well. We've got a wonderful dental team that go out and do really important work in clinics and in communities as well.

And we've got a midwifery team that will go out and provide care for women that might be hours away from their local hospital and wouldn't otherwise get that sort of continuity of care. That's really important in that, pregnancy point of their lives. Sorry. It's, I think it is really pivotal and coming from a country area myself, I understand the value in health promotion and prevention as well.

And being able to pick up things before they turn into more problematic issues. I have a very distinct memory of my dad actually being asked by his. specialist just to pop in for an appointment and that's five hours drive away. So there's no popping in. So being able to take these services out into country communities is, is really valuable.

Yeah, so special and like really helping improve that access that equitable access to health care, right? Like you say five hours. Oh my goodness. It's not just a pop in. Can you imagine popping in for a quick GP visit for five hours, 10 minutes in and out. Throttle the GP. Oh my goodness.

So. RFDS, what has surprised you the most about becoming a flight nurse?

What are some of the things that you just like, had not thought about, that you've experienced that you're like, oh my goodness, things that have just kind of surprised you? I think because my most recent work was in the intensive care setting. And as you know, Liam, it's very Very controlled, very black and white.

Most of the time decisions are quite collaborative in the multidisciplinary team that you're working in. And I think because that was where my mindset was at going into the flight nurse role, that took a little bit of an adjustment where I was thinking, this is what I want to enact with my care.

But I've got a lot of factors impeding that, or I might need to think a little bit outside the box in terms of turbulence or being able to take additional equipment with me or needing another pair of hands. But I'm actually working with a volunteer ambulance crew, which again are worth their weight in gold.

But have been, you know, pulled away from their family dinner on a Sunday night and are there to give you help. So I think that's probably been the biggest adjustment. And we, we have great support from our doctors, but they're not always on the flats with us. So sometimes just brainstorming going, I've got this issue.

I'm going to need a plan, but I'm just in a brain fog at the moment and I need to talk things through. That can be very, very helpful when making a plan of action with a particular scenario. Yeah. Amazing. And what do you feel like you've learned the most about yourself in this process? What has come up for you on reflection?

Because I'm sure there's a version of Emily, right, that like, was like, I don't know if I can ever do this. Because we all have those thoughts, right? And we all have those beliefs. And it just seems so far away. But you mentioned earlier, it was like the proudest moment of your career. Like, and I remember you sending me a picture of you standing outside the plane.

And I just like got chills. Oh my god, this is so fun. It's so cool. So what do you think that is? Like, what is the prioritist kind of like thing that you've learned about yourself? Yeah, I actually remember us talking about imposter syndrome and that was certainly something that I needed to work, work through prior to my application process.

I think the biggest thing I've learned is I'm not, I'm not particularly driven by chasing the adrenaline, if that makes sense. So I get a lot. Of job satisfaction, whether it's making someone a cup of tea and just having a chat with them for a while, even if it's just for 10 minutes, knowing that they haven't had someone to talk to or listen to them for when they've been in a busy hospital.

I get as much satisfaction as that as I do providing acute care. And I think I went into the job thinking that I would really enjoy. The hustle and bustle and the high traumas and that high pace, which don't get me wrong. That's what we trained for. So there is an element of being able to utilize those skills that you think, okay, I managed that well.

And I switched into automatic mode with those sorts of cases, but it's, it's not what gets me out of bed every morning. funnily enough, That sense of satisfaction is what I felt when I was working in the nursing home as a 17 year old, not knowing what I was going to do with my career.

It's being able to say, I did my best today and I provided. comfort and care to someone who really needed it. I love that so much. That is like, we talk about it all the time, being basic makes you advance, is what I think. Like, doing the basics and doing them really well and connecting with people and being able to really allow yourself to enjoy those like, little precious micro moments in our careers.

Those are the moments, the things that I think we hold forever, and I think that we can't ride the wave of adrenaline, the acute stuff for long, because we have to come back to homeostasis ourselves, right? And I love that connection there, because I think the cup of tea and the connection in the chat is safety, it's home.

It's like what we just do best, like innately best, and the other acute stuff. It's like, it takes so much from us. So it makes complete sense that we, we can't spend all of our time there, right? And I think that's where a lot of us in critical care specialties do get burnt out. And we do ride that wagon because we believe we constantly need to be on and we become hypervigilant in our own life.

So it's actually healthy for our nervous system and our stress cycles to be able to, Just have a call. You know, some days you just want a call, that's maybe just a pickup, right, a drop off, and like taking somebody home. Because, and to have that connection, and to remind yourself why you're here, why you do the work that you do.

That's why that When I connect with people that are really driven by the acuteness, like I always preface it with that similar conversation, like that's amazing and it's going to be so much fun, but also like you're going to fry your nervous system. I think it's really important that you have balance.

in that and you find the wins in the micro moments because sometimes as we both know in critical care it's not always a good ending it's not always positive it's not always what we want or hoped it to be right so we need to be able to then create and find little micro moments of pride and joy even in the chaos to celebrate.

Our efforts and our contribution. So I love that there's like 17 year old Emily that's like, oh my god, I just love all these little things. They're so important. And that's what our patients remember. They don't remember the acute care that you provided. They're not overly fussed about that. They remember, you know, I had a patient that I brushed her hair in the shower.

That's what she remembered. Like, I took her off the van, you know, tracky, removed the tracky, did all the funny things, all the tech things. She didn't care about any of that. She just cared that she felt human again. But I think that's so, so important that you mentioned that. And I recognize that is a point of privilege as well, that I'm able to have those moments because I talk to colleagues who are paramedics who are working in emergency departments and they don't have time.

They don't have time to provide those nice points of care. And I think over time that really takes effect and we're seeing a lot of challenge with burnout and nurses getting to a point in their career being like, this is not what. I signed up for. I'm not, I'm not getting that job satisfaction.

I'm rushing from bed to bed, just putting out spot fires. Yeah. And I think that's really challenging too. Yeah. Yeah. We've got a lot of work to do in the industry. We won't solve it on this, this episode today. We've got a lot of work to do. I think that the one thing that I always go back to is that we can find those little micro, micro moments in our day just for ourselves.

Right, we don't have to go and do something extra special or make somebody a cup of tea, but we have to consciously redirect our brain to find the one thing today that we're proud of. Even if it's just one thing, it could be the smallest thing, right? It could be like, I don't know, like, I gave my meds on time, I gave the first med on time, right?

And the rest weren't on time, but the first med was on time. And like, celebrate that. We have to create that culture of celebration within ourselves, because the peaks and the troughs, the highs and the lows. We'll just eat you up in health care, especially with the lack of support as we currently kind of stand.

That was my final question. It was really, what is the, what are some of the challenges or like the future challenges that you see within kind of like the RFDS space for nurses that are thinking about pursuing this pathway, like challenges or considerations for people that are considering joining the RFDS in the future?

I think it is. a huge investment in your time to get to a point where you're ready to move into the aeromedical space. And I think that can be really challenging when you're at the early point in your career and you think, I don't want to wait six, seven, eight years to get or longer to get to a point where I'm reaching that stage of skill.

It's a huge investment in your. Education because study is not cheap, you might have to relocate, everyone has other things going on in their life, whether it's a family partner mortgage, et cetera. So is a huge commitment to that. But I think when you, whether it's flight nursing, whether it's moving into a leadership position.

Whether it's getting out of clinical nursing, having your goals and being able to break them down and go, well, what can I do in the next six months that's going to work towards this, this plan or this goal? So yeah, I would say that's probably the biggest challenge in looking at that very long road and thinking, Oh my gosh, am I ever going to get there?

Yeah, And I mean, what I love about connecting with you today is there was a version of you that didn't believe that that was possible. Like, had a little glimmer of hope, right? But you did make it happen, and I think that the message of this podcast is that you can do anything that you want to do in your career.

You have to just keep showing your brain that it is possible and you have to create and achieve your goals, even micro goals, every month, every quarter, every six months, because whilst we wait for our managers to do it in the system, maybe they do, maybe they don't we have to be self directed with our goals and.

in pursuit of our goals and allow ourselves to pivot and change if it's not going to plan, right. But I'm a firm believer that all paths lead to Rome. Like, I really do believe that to be true. And I think that when people think about the amount of work that they need to put in to achieve a goal in nursing, to join the RFDS in some way, shape or form, it's always about thinking, right, this might take me five to 10 years, whatever.

I might have to try more than once to get in. Okay. I might have to apply multiple times. It's, we almost need to build like our failure tolerance because we might fail and that's totally fine and we can try again from a place of perspective and growth and more knowledge and insight and looking at this whole journey through the lens of.

return on investment, right? Like the time spent, is it worth the return on investment that you get when you actually finally get to the end destination, right? And for some people that answer will be no, straight off the bat. They're like, no, it's not worth that. It's not worth it. And that's maybe it's just not aligned for you.

But I think that I love looking at it through that lens of like, okay, I put five years in, but this is the result that I create through those five years. And if there's somebody listening that is like Emily, that it's just. their goal, it's their dream. It's a really great question to ask yourself, is it worth the time investment?

Everything costs money, everything costs time. You're going to be spending the money, you're going to be spending the time anyway, you may as well do it going after the thing that you really, really want. And I think that that's, that's my kind of line of thinking. And that's one thing that being a nursepreneur has taught me is like, you never know.

You don't know how it's going to happen, when it's going to happen, if it's going to happen, but you can always bet on yourself. You can always bet on yourself showing up, navigating the turbulence, right, to use a neuromedical term, and to, really like, you know, use your critical thinking to get you from A to B, and to create that result for yourself.

And it might not look like you thought it would look like. You just let it happen and you just follow the process, right? So, final words for somebody that is. thinking of becoming an RFDS nurse. We've covered a lot of it here, but in a snapshot, what would you say to them? And what next steps would you advocate that they take?

And I'm just leaving it broad and open. We don't have a specific, just to make it easy for you.

If I haven't mentioned it already. Set your goals and cliche as cliche as it is enjoy that journey. So don't be in a hurry to get to the end goal because you will learn so much along the way and align yourself with people that share your values and that. That are driven and want to see you succeed.

I think there's a lot of value in telling people what your goals are. A couple of years ago, I told a few friends that I wanted to run a half marathon and I regretted it instantly because they wouldn't stop asking me about it. So they held me accountable and I think there's a lot of. Yeah, a lot of value in that.

So if you tell your workmates or your loved ones, this is my dream. This is where I want to get, they're going to hold you accountable and go, Hey, how are you going with that, with that study or with that extra skill that you're working on at the moment. And I think that's really powerful as well.

And you might find a mentor along the way that you go, I want to be you when I grew up and I not necessarily in that. perfect mold of where you see yourself going. But I really resonated with quite a few of the nurses and midwives that I've worked along the way with that have really hot cardiac skills or are just the most calm bedside manner individual that you can find.

And you pick traits and go, how. How can I learn from you? And that can be really powerful as well. Yeah. And I, I couldn't agree more with what you said. The journey is probably not going to be what you thought it was. It's probably going to take some twists and some turns, but that's, that's life. That's how, that's how it works.

And if you've got a focus at the end, then you can, you can really work towards that. I think the final thing that I'd say, Liam, is do not underestimate. Interview preparation and honestly, I think there's such a focus on that, especially when you move into certain industries that it might not just be a nursing panel that you're talking to, there's probably going to be a human resources representative or a talent acquisition member on the.

On that panel. So making sure that you're really confident and that you've prepared your yourself as best you can means that you walk into that interview feeling confident and not nervous and shaky and underselling yourself. So I'm singing your praises here, but I think there's a lot of value, a lot of value that goes into preparing yourself so that you can really.

really shine and show your best, yeah, your best representation of yourself. I love that so much. So good. And I think wrap it up, you just triggered a thought within me, which is I'm leaning more into the belief that there is data in your desire and in your dreams. And so many people do not pay attention to that.

In our data, right? Like that, like, nudge, that little, like, nudge. Oh, I think I maybe want to be RFDS, or I want to do that. And people can have just muted down. But if we can start to really lean into that and explore it, and we don't have to become an RFDS nurse tomorrow. You can, it can take you 10 you five.

But even just getting curious about that little internal nudge or sign that, or, you know, maybe you keep seeing the RFDS thing, and it kind of really relates to you. Or you've picked up this episode and you're like, Oh, I just found this and it's perfect. That is data that we really kind of have a duty to lean into and to explore and to just let unfold.

And as you were talking there, one thing that comes to me is that my coach always says that she says, it's not better there than it is here. It's no different. You just have different problems, right? It's no better there than it is here, right? So like when you become an RFDS flight nurse, it's no better than it is you are right now as a medical nurse, right?

You just have different, different challenges, different problems, different opportunities. So if we can really lean into that, then we can enjoy the whole process, right? Because we're then not in a rush. Because when I believe like, oh, it's no better there than it is here, then I can start to like create some enjoyment here and see how much I've grown and how much I've gained.

And I don't have to future sell myself on like, when I get to RFDS my life is going to be so much better. I think as nurses we do that a lot. We're like, oh, when we get to the goal, it's going to be great. And the problem is when we put so much weight on the goal, and we get to the goal, And it's maybe not what we thought it would be, or maybe it's like just kind of neutral and it is what it is.

Then we go down a whole different pathway of like, maybe I never wanted this. And you know, so I think that there's like a bit of a cycle that it's super interesting. Have you found that to be true? Did you experience any of that? Like when you got there and you're like, Oh, it's still nursing. It's still like nursing that I do.

Or was it just like, what was your experience? I said to a friend recently, it's funny how quickly things become your normal norm. In terms of, if I think back to my first few flights when I was on orientation, everything was new and exciting and I'd overthink the tiniest little decisions that I wouldn't normally in a hospital environment and fast forward two years and there's things that just happen.

Out of habits and decisions that I make purely out of the experiences I've had previously. So that's, and that comes with any workplace, I suppose, where you think, Oh, this is, this is just habit now. And this is my new normal from what you were saying, I think there's a lot of a room to explore what your passions are.

And if you are on your journey to get to a particular point in your career and you find an area of. Of nursing or healthcare that you really, really love, then that's amazing. That's, that's what we're here for. That's all we're trying to achieve is to have a job that we can jump out of bed each morning and go, okay, most mornings I'm really happy to go to work today.

Yeah. And there's so many factors that go into it. There are, yeah. And that's why I think the first step for most people that are listening is probably just tune into your like desire. What is it that you actually want? People often message me and say, what do you think I could do? I know nothing about you.

I can't help you. Until you have some kind of insight into what it is that maybe you're interested in. Right, I could tell you 50 things, but anyway, Emily, thank you so much for sharing your time, your experiences, your passion for maternal, child health, ICU, critical care, primary health, all of the things.

I'm so grateful to reconnect with you and so happy, like just so happy for you and your career. Where can people connect with you? Like, I don't wanna put you on the spot here, like have 3 million people connect with you, but are you on LinkedIn, ? Do you have a, a LinkedIn profile that people connect you?

I'm on LinkedIn Connect with you. Yeah. Yeah. So if you're happy, I'm there. Is Emily Wilson okay? Yeah, absolutely. For people to come and pick your brains about RFTS. But congratulations. I know it's a work in progress, but congrats on like, you know, setting a goal and making it happen. We have to celebrate that.

And thanks for all your contribution too. Flight nursing in Australia and all the other things and I'm excited to see what they're moving forward. It's been my pleasure to have a chat. And yes, we go, we go back to the start really in terms of me addressing my imposter syndrome and addressing my shambles of a CV.

So, thank you for that. Emily was actually my very first, very first nursing client, so to speak, and Liam Cosmo coaching back in the day. And I'm forever grateful, like so grateful to have been a tiny little micro part of your journey. And to see like what you've created is just incredible. So kudos to you.

So proud of you. Everybody, we will see you next week. Thank you so much for checking in. If you know somebody that wants to be an RFDS flight nurse or just work for the RFDS, share this with them. Share the love, review, rate, let us know all the things about it and we will see you next week. Stay safe and stay curious.

Bye!