At a time when fewer health professionals are choosing to practise in the country, University of Wollongong nursing student Rachel Jenkins jumped at the chance to get off the beaten track and see outback Australia as part of her degree.
Ms Jenkins spent a week of her nursing placement in the Northern Territory community of Katherine, and if that was not adventurous enough, the British native agreed to take part in a new documentary encouraging university medical students to pursue careers in rural communities.
"It was just beautiful, and even though I had only been there a week, by the end of my time there, everyone was saying hello," Ms Jenkins said.
Ms Jenkins' story is one of three on the Wide Horizons DVD, which will be distributed to 28 universities across Australia this year.
The trip highlighted for the third-year student just how valued nurses were in outback and rural communities, and Ms Jenkins said rural placements were a good way to break down the status divide between metropolitan and regional medical staff.
"In a city hospital, you are just another nurse on a specialist ward, but out there you have to be a generalist," she said.
"You have to have a bit of everything - surgical, paediatrics ... even a bit of midwifery."
The DVD is an initiative of the National Rural Health Students' Network, which aims to combat the health crisis in rural and remote Australia.
The University of Wollongong's Student Health Alliance for Rural Populations group has supported the making and distribution of the DVD.
The DVD targets students in all health disciplines including medicine, nursing and allied health to encourage them to experience life as practitioner in a rural community.