The RFDS Give Them Wings scholarships provide one-off financial assistance and offer students the opportunity to spend a week with the Flying Doctor or take a work experience trip by air. The scholarship program encourages students to seek employment in regional or rural towns upon graduation, putting their vital skills to work in communities that need them the most. 

An Enrolled Nurse at Grampians Health’s Horsham campus, Tammy has already gained success in her role having been recently awarded Federation University TAFE’s Trainee of the Year and followed that up with the ANMF Student of the Year. Tammy is now studying her Bachelor of Nursing and has already received distinctions during her studies.  

Before she married and started a family, Tammy had ambitions of becoming a midwife, but the exclusiveness of midwifery was not available to her in Horsham then. Tammy said she intends to work forever in Horsham. 

“I’m really enjoying nursing and when I finish my Graduate Year, I want to further my studies to either work in Theatre as a peri-operative nurse or to qualify as a midwife,” Tammy said. 

“My daughter is an Aboriginal Health Liaison Officer with Grampians Health Horsham. The team there is working on a program to increase the ante-natal care for First Nations mothers and to encourage them to seek out appointments with midwives. 

“My children are First Nations people, and I would love to use my accepted position in that community to work directly with those mothers as their personal midwife. As much as I like the idea of midwifery, I also love working in Theatre and they are both level-pegging as my choices to this point.” 

Chloe James currently works as a Program Assistant with the Allied Health team at the Ballarat campus and is studying her Bachelor of Nursing after moving to Ballarat from Queensland a year ago and hearing of the traineeship opportunity. 

Chloe said her true passions are in health research and rural and remote nursing. 

“I worked in an administration support role in Human Research Ethics and in Research for around a decade,” Chloe said. 

“So, when the opportunity came about to do a clinical degree and have it paid for, I was like ‘pick me’. 

“I’ve come from a big Queensland hospital where they were doing life-changing work, and I never expected to see so much impressive work done in smaller hospitals but the research happening at Grampians Health is incredible too. That is definitely the driving factor, and I’d like to be a part of that work. 

“Rural and remote nursing is my big goal though. I’ve visited a lot of remote settings in recent years, and I find the common theme among those communities is they don’t have any doctors or clinicians. 

“Nurses that work in those communities get to be a ‘jack of all trades’. They go out to emergencies, and they help people the way a GP would. 

“I’m really inspired by how much flexibility there is in a nursing career. The research definitely drove my interest in a clinical career, and I will do that at some stage, but these remote communities are where I want to be,” she said. 

Tammy and Chloe were among 160 applicants to apply for the scholarships in the 14th year of the Give Them Wings program. Of the 10 scholarships awarded, four were for Bachelor of Nursing studies, five are studying medicine and one is studying a Bachelor of Paramedicine. 

Grampians Health Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer Leanne Shea congratulated Tammy and Chloe on their scholarships. 

“It is truly remarkable to have two of our team members securing half of the available scholarships for their nursing studies,” Ms Shea said. 

“We are incredibly proud of both Tammy and Chloe for their achievements; this support enables them to fulfil their career aspirations and to channel their passion into future initiatives in nursing and midwifery here at Grampians Health.”