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and representation on national and state executive committees, creating a platform for addressing the needs and concerns of ‘bush’ nurses (Hegney, 1996). In 1992, the AARN was established ‘to discuss and advocate for inquiry into what had previously been an invisible area of practice’ (Mills, Birks & Hegney, 2010, p. 30; later, the AARN became the Rural Nursing and Midwifery Faculty of the RCNA, and from 1 July 2013, the Australian College of Nursing). A seminal article by Hegney, ‘The Status of Rural Nursing in Australia: A Review’ (1996), which defined rural nursing and identified the role and function of the rural nurse, was very influential in raising the profile of rural and remote nurses as a cohort who had spate and unique considerations within the nursing profession. The article arose from the National Report, ‘The Role and Function of the Rural Nurse in Australia’ (Hegney et al., 1997), which at the time was viewed as a major and thorough investigation into the issue. 2.18 Nature of Remote Nursing Due to the unique circumstances of remote generalist nursing, delivering mental healthcare is only one of many skillsets that remote nurses must possess and maintain. Remote area nurses’ generalist roles may differ depending on their current circumstances, but irrespective of location, these roles encompass more similarities than differences (Kruske et al., 2008). This commonality distinguishes remote nurses as a unique cohort. As Paliadelis et al. (2012) stated, ‘[remote nurses] need to function as generalists, as opposed to a specialist’. Two reasons for this are, first, that remote nurses deliver care across the lifespan, and second, that they respond to any type of patient presentation and are overwhelmingly the only clinician available to do so (see Chapter 1). These features make remote nursing one of the most complex areas of nursing practice (Cramer, 2006, p. 1992).