My Rural Story

JacintaElston

What is different about working in rural and remote areas?

My name is Jacinta Elston. I’m Professor and Associate Dean of Indigenous Education and Strategy in the Division of Tropical Health and Medicine at James Cook University. I’ve been working in Indigenous health for all of my career and I guess I came to Indigenous health and working in areas relating to indigenous and remote health because I grew up in North Queensland in a regional centre. As a child I spent a lot of time in rural farming and agricultural communities with my family. From this I have a natural attachment to the beauty of being in small, rural communities.

The difference about working in rural and remote communities, from the context that I’m coming at this from, is really to do with the indigenous health aspects of it. It’s the fact that when working in rural and remote communities, you’re going to see Aboriginal andTorresStrait islanderpeople at amuch higher portion than you would if you were working in a large urban centre. In a large urban centre, you might not come across many Aboriginal Torres Strait islander people at all in the hospital care system, but in rural remote communities,

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