Mrs Murrell-McMillan (50), of Otatara, is the first nurse to become chairwoman of the rural general practice network. The organisation is the first of its type to have a nursing professional as its chairwoman.
The network, which formed 15 years ago, had a mandate to ensure general practice met the health care needs of New Zealand's rural communities, and provided support for rural general practice, in-cludes advocacy networking, spouse support, and locum cover, she said.
"General practice is about the team rather than the prac-titioners, and my appointment is recognition the of breadth of that team. Rural general practice is different because it looks after populations of families in rural communities... so a strong grounding in the community is important.''
Mrs Murrell-McMillan spent her childhood in Manapouri and has lived in rural communities for many years since.
After an extensive nursing career, which included two years nursing in rural Tanzania on a Volunteer Services Abroad programme, she completed a masters in rural and remote nursing at the University of Sydney.
She now works as an on-call rural nurse specialist in Roxburgh, and as a senior nursing lecturer at Otago Polytechnic, where she has helped develop a rural knowledge component in the bachelor of nursing curricula.
