Senior Lecturer of Nursing at Centre of Rural and Remote Health for James Cook University Jodi Brown recently returned from Papua New Guinea where she and other JCU students lived on a medical ship and treated local patients.

Over just ten days a total of 3287 PNG patients were treated by The Youth With a Mission medical ship students.

The experience is available to second, third and fourth year students and counts towards the total clinical hours of their degree.

Ms Brown said the YWAM experience allowed JCU nursing students to gain fantastic insights on global health.

"There were further insights particularly with regards to developing a deeper understanding of primary health care principles and the social and cultural determinants of health as the students see it in action," Ms Brown said.

"They also gained practical knowledge and skills such as learning how to bridge communication gaps with people from a different culture, how to safely adapt practice in a low resourced environment and how to work and live with a culturally diverse, multidisciplinary team whilst away.

"It was such an amazing trip and I couldn't recommended it enough, hopefully next time we can get some students from Mount Isa to come with us."

JCU student Therese Lynch also recommended the trip.

"I would definitely recommend the trip to anybody who is interested in volunteering," Ms Lynch said.

"It is so rewarding to get to the end of a clinic day and have a look at the stats and see how many people you have provided care to. Then you get back to the ship and you hear the stories from other teams and it is just amazing."

The trip has even affected her outlook on her career.

"The major change for me is the direction that I am now going to steer my career, prior to this trip I had no interest in embarking on further study in the area of child health, quite frankly I was scared off it," she said.

"But after two days of working on the primary health care team and conducting child health checks on children ranging from three days old to five years old I discovered that not only do I have a knack for working with children, I actually really enjoy it."

Over ten clinic days and 29 locations they saw 2135 primary health care patients 433 dental patients and 719 optometry patients.

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