General Information
Outline:
The Rural Appreciation Weekend (RAW) is the premier event on the RAHMS calendar. It sees around 150 medicine, nursing and allied health students from the NRHSN attend from
around Australia. RAW is a camping event held over the October long weekend on the Nott family’s property “Oakfield” outside of Dunedoo each year. RAW gives delegates an opportunity to network in a mutlidisciplinary setting and learn more about what it is like to live in rural or remote Australia. The weekend is absolutely packed with a range of activities to keep students entertained from snake envenomation, Indigenous cultural awareness and sheep handling worshops to a range of guest speakers and of course a few parties for good measure. RAW has proven to inspire many young health students to begin think about taking placements in rural and remote Australia through given them a positive experience in a rural setting.
In 2009 RAW won the NRHSN Award for “Best Rural Health Event for 2008″ and continues to be one of Australia’s finest events run by a rural health club in Australia.
Activities:
For those of you a little cautious about attending RAW, think again! This event is not just for those die hards that love the bush… If you at all enjoy a laugh, meeting new people and of course generally having a good time, then RAW is definately for you! Our program is absolutely jam packed with a great combination of hands on farming experience, workshops that will teach you things that your universities won’t and of course some good ol fashioned partying!!!
History
The Rural Appreciation Weekend or RAW was created in 2007 by a second year medical student, Shannon Nott, following his experience at the NRHN Forum in Albury. He had left the conference with a further understanding of the maldistribution of health professionals across Australia and the realisation that positive experiences in rural and remote setting was a factor in influencing students to try rural and/or remote health careers. “Being a country boy by heart, I could not think of a better way to get students interested in rural and remote health than by giving them the opportunity to experience it for themselves. Naturally the concept of RAW was born through that belief.” Bringing the idea back to his Rural Health Club - the Rural Allied Health and Medical Society (RAHMS) at UNSW a small group of enthusiastic student worked with him to plan and develop the first RAW in October that year. One aspect of the program was clear to the working party and that was to ensure that it was a multi-professional event to stress the importance of inter-professional teamwork in rural and remote areas. With that goal in mind, the team contacted the Student Health Alliance for Rural Populations (SHARP) the rural health club of the University of Wollongong and asked them to be involved.
Shannon Nott - creator of RAW
“Being a country boy by heart, I could not think of a better way to get students interested in rural and remote health than by giving them the opportunity to experience it for themselves” - Shannon Nott
After months of planning the first RAW was held in “Oakfield” Dunedoo over the 19-21st October 2007. It saw 40 delegates attend from RAHMS and SHARP.
Since it’s creation, RAW has seen a huge growth in popularity with 100-150 students attending annually. RAHMS still hosts the weekend on Shannon’s property in Dunedoo. The quick rise in popularity and success of RAW was recognised by the NRHSN, with the event winning the “Best Rural Health Club Event - 2008″ Award.
Past RAWs
Click on the below photos to see some info and pictures from previous RAWs… For media and reports click on the tab above.
RAW 07
RAW 08
RAW 09