Presenters

Caroline Orchiston is Director of the Centre for Sustainability, University of Otago. She has a background in earth science, and her research focusses on disaster risk reduction, earthquake response planning, risk communication and societal resilience to disruptive events. She co-developed the AF8 programme in collaboration with Civil Defence and Emergency Management and the science community, which has built response capability for a future South Island earthquake over the last 8 years. She is passionate about supporting communities to improve their risk awareness and preparedness for disasters. Caroline lives in Dunedin with her husband and three children, and is interested in permaculture and music.  

Chris is an emergency management advisor for Dunedin City (Emergency Management Otago), with a background in emergency management studies. Their journey into the field began as a guide in Fiordland, where the challenging and remote environment significantly shaped their approach to emergency preparedness and response. This formative experience ignited a strong commitment to disaster risk reduction and community resilience. Today, Chris is dedicated to enhancing disaster preparedness and response strategies, particularly in rural and vulnerable areas. They work closely with various stakeholders—including communities, responders, and organisations—to build robust relationships and improve emergency readiness throughout the district.

Kate works at West Otago Health (WOH) in Tapanui in the role of Nurse Practitioner and PRIME.

Prior to returning to WOH in 2022 (where she started her rural nursing journey in 2006), Kate worked across a number of rural practices in some challenging rural areas enabling her to gain good insight into the challenges faced by PRIME Practitioners regardless of discipline.

After experiencing burnout first hand, she decided to capitalise on her experience and trained to become a Professional Supervisor in order to share her learnings with other health professionals. 

Kate currently spends 3 days a week meeting with health professionals using the skills she has learned through her formal training in mentorship and professional supervision with the College of Nurses NZ combining her experience with her formal training.

These skills extend to PRIME Practitioners, includes debriefing 1:1 or in groups, using a structured, sensible, but gentle approach with clinician wellbeing at the forefront. Having a safe place to discuss experiences is beneficial to clinician wellbing and workforce longevity.

Kate is also on the National PRIME Committee and the National ANTS Review Committee and has been involved recently in the review of Rural Health in the Southern Region which resulted in a robust report advocating for improved services for rural communities.

Kate lives on a sheep, beef and arable farm in West Otago, so lives and works the rural life. She is going to share in her presentation some pearls and pitfalls of professional supervision applying this to the PRIME role, and will discuss the evidence to support debrief and supervision for health care professionals.

Kirsty is a Nurse Practitioner living in Christchurch.  She currently works in the Emergency Department at Christchurch Hospital and also Primary Care/PRIME.  She is a co-convenor at Otago University in the Post Grad Nursing Department working specifically with the Nurse Practitioner Candidates and RN Prescribing papers.  She grew up rurally on a farm in Central Otago and has spent many years working rurally including as a PRIME Responder in the Maniototo, Roxburgh and Stewart Island. She also sits on the National PRIME Committee.

A lot of her nursing career has been Emergency/ICU with a five-year stint as a flight nurse in California where she first came across the value of professional supervision.