“After a few days, you’re just extremely bored,” Hannah says. “The most exciting time of the day was mealtime. I felt so sorry for [self-quarantining] people who had children, as I think it would be even more distressing as a child being in a single room for two weeks.
“But I did get quite a bit of uni work done during this time. I really valued the country hospitality and the daily nurse phone calls.”
Back in Adelaide at last, Hannah was able to complete her ward placements at Queen Elizabeth Hospital (which involved taking diet histories from patients in both the geriatric and general medicine wards), the oral exam at Flinders, and then to go on to complete the 21 weeks of placements required for her fourth and final year of study.
But the financial impact of her 2020 experience has continued to take a toll. Hannah is still paying for the $3000 hotel quarantine on a 24-month payment plan, and had to continue paying rent for the share house in Adelaide for the almost seven months she was in Horsham—”paying full rent for a house you’re not even living in, that hurt,” she says.
During the summer break, Hannah works in Horsham’s grain industry, saving money to help support herself throughout the year. But with her first placement for 2021 beginning in January, she had to stop work earlier and was not able to supplement it with other part-time work during the year, while also being ineligible for Centrelink support.
“It’s hard to find a job in Adelaide when you aren’t going to be available for 21 weeks of the year,” she says.
For these reasons, receiving the $2000 Matthew Flinders Scholarship in 2020 and a $500 financial hardship grant from the Flinders University Student Association (FUSA) was a huge relief.
“Without that support, I would have really struggled through my last 10 weeks of placement, especially. It helped me pay my rent and for bills, bus tickets and groceries. It allowed me to complete my placements with much less financial pressure and stress.”
While they came at the cost of separation from her family in locked down Victoria, the placements this year reaffirmed Hannah’s decision to pursue nutrition and dietetics.
The first was a Community and Public Health-themed placement based at the Edinburgh North site of non-profit organisation Sonder, which is one of the leading providers of mental health services in South Australia. Hannah made the two-hour round trip every day for seven weeks, sharing the driving with a fellow student.
“Sonder do amazing work and support people facing a range of different challenges,” Hannah says. “I was quite nervous at first, as I was not sure of the role a dietician would play in a mental health service, but I really enjoyed working in this area.
“My project at Sonder involved modifying an existing healthy eating program to suit participants with mild to moderate mental health challenges, and implementing that through six 2-hour sessions located at Nuriootpa in the Barossa Valley, and then evaluating the program’s success in a final report.
“I enjoyed it so much that for my independent studies topic, following, I decided to run a free community ‘good mood food workshop’ for the City of Adelaide Council at the Adelaide Aquatic Centre.”
The second placement—on the theme of Food Service—took Hannah to Katherine District Hospital in the Northern Territory. There, she worked in the kitchen on a joint project with a fellow student for four weeks, conducting a gap analysis on the hospital’s texture modified food service for patients suffering dysphagia (difficulty swallowing food or liquid), in comparison with the International Dysphagia Diet Standardisation Initiative (IDDSI).
“We audited a range of hospital meals against IDDSI standards and came up with recommendations to make the texture modified food safer for the patients.”
While Hannah enjoyed all of her placements, this was one of her favourites because of the opportunity to explore the Katherine region and work with Indigenous communities.
“I completed a cultural orientation and visited a remote community in Beswick with other Adelaide and Darwin-based Flinders students who were also on placement in Katherine, including from Medicine, Speech Pathology and Nursing.
“I couldn't have gone to Katherine without the support of [Flinders’] College of Nursing and Health Sciences, which reimbursed my flights, while the University provided accommodation.”
Hannah’s final placement was clinical-themed and based at the Royal Adelaide Hospital (RAH) for 10 weeks from July 2021.
“It’s such an amazing public hospital. It was the first time I had ever visited. I got to work with a range of dietitians and patients in the stoke and orthogeriatric inpatient units and the diabetes and radiotherapy outpatient clinics. I was the most nervous for this placement, but I really enjoyed it!”
Growing up in Horsham—300km north-west of Melbourne and gateway to the north-western side of the Grampians National Park—Hannah thought she might be a vet or a zookeeper, but discovered a keen interest in health and food technology at school.
“I love cooking and eating, but being a chef wasn’t for me. I was doing health and food technology at school and really enjoyed both of them. Health is such an important aspect of people’s lives, so I googled allied health courses around nutrition and went to a few open days in Melbourne and Adelaide.
“The Flinders University program is unique because you qualify as a dietician within four years of study. And I fell in love with the campus—it’s so pretty.”
“I actually had no idea what a dietician does, but I jumped into this course and I’ve found I really love all the areas in which dieticians work.”
Hannah’s goal now is to seek work either as a community or clinical dietician, supporting people with dietary changes that benefit their health.
“I’m very keen to graduate! It has been a long haul with COVID in the middle there. But overall, I feel I had a positive impact on people's health during my placements, and I can't wait to start working.”
Hannah feels many students shared her experience of finding it difficult to really engage with online coursework. And while it was nice to be home with her family in the early months of the pandemic, this was also isolating.
“In Adelaide, I study with my three housemates, but my parents were working, so I was just by myself with the computer all day.
“It was a really challenging time. But I’m glad I pushed through and discovered how strong my resilience is.”
Hannah has a special message to supporters of the Matthew Flinders Scholarship:
“Thank you so much for your generosity. It has been a hard two years for many people, and I am so grateful you took the opportunity to support Flinders students.”
You can help more students like Hannah find their fearless by supporting the Matthew Flinders Scholarship.
