In the heart of a thriving country town renowned for its bustling markets and scenic gardens, Lynette Bullen gets ready to go into work and inspire Australia’s next generation of healthcare workers.
The proud Wiradjuri woman from Orange, New South Wales, has spent three decades in the health sector dedicating much of her efforts towards children and families trying to overcome the clutches of drug and alcohol addiction.
She was also awarded the Western Health Research Network Aboriginal Researcher of the Year Award in Dubbo in 2023.
Today, she splits her time between working as a senior clinician in an involuntary drug and alcohol treatment unit and lecturing in medicine at Charles Sturt University.
In 2021, she was named ‘Clinician of the Year’ by the Australian Professional Society on Alcohol and other Drugs, an internationally-recognised organisation for experts in this field.
Born into a family of healthcare professionals, Lynette says enrolling to become a nurse felt natural.
“My mother started her nursing when she was 17 as a psychiatric nurse here in Orange,” she said.
“She moved from Warren and it was a way for her to get out of a small country town.
“My two older sisters were both nurses … one of my nieces now works as a nurse and one of my other nieces is in charge of audits in one of the health districts.
“It was certainly a family trait for the women.”
While working in healthcare was no surprise for Lynette, her venture into caring for people affected by drug and alcohol disorders was unexpected.
It wasn’t until she entered this space that she uncovered her true calling.
“I led a very sheltered life so I didn’t know about drugs at all,” she said.
Despite how confronting the work was, Lynette knew this was an area she needed to work in.
In communities around Australia, the devastating impacts of multigenerational trauma continue to surface through high rates of substance use disorders.
A recent report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare states that mental and substance use disorders are the leading cause of disease burden for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with a significant amount experiencing high levels of psychological distress.
The harsh reality of this hit Lynette once she began working for a service to support mothers and babies through drug and alcohol dependency.
“Seeing the effect on children, it was heartbreaking, and I thought if I could provide some stability for the children while they were there with their mothers and I suppose not to be so much a role model, but sort of show and do for the parents, like giving them the skills to be able to set boundaries with their children,” she said.
Lynette’s gentle approach helped the parents she was working with feel safe to open up about what had happened to them.
“The women started to talk to me about their drug use,” she said.
“I think they felt that I was a non-threatening person because I was working with the children and they saw me, as I suppose, a nurturer so they would come and talk to me.
“And I thought, ‘Oh God, I better go and learn something about it.’”
Lynette took on more study to equip her with the tools to better support and empower the people she was working with.
A job that initially felt quite “overwhelming” turned into a lifetime pursuit of finding answers and better solutions to improve health outcomes for people living with trauma in remote and regional communities.
“The area that I work in, in drug and alcohol research, has certainly opened up a lot of doors like working with [Charles Sturt University],” she said.
“I never dreamt that I would be working at a university.”
In her role with CSU’s School of Rural Medicine, Lynette works closely with fourth-year students to help them investigate various research topics.
“Research can be very tricky and the process can be quite overwhelming at times – especially going through ethics,” she said.
“I [encourage] students that research is hard but it’s also very rewarding … what you’re researching can impact people’s lives in a positive way.”
Lynette has seen this first hand.
One of the research projects she began working on prior to joining CSU was the Grog App, a landmark initiative to more accurately track alcohol disorders and put transformative health information into the hands of First Nations people.
“The app is a screening tool for Indigenous people to measure their drinking outcomes,” she said.
“What I like about it is that at the end of the app, it actually gives the participant who [completes the screening survey] a brief intervention.”
Lynette finds it exciting that the app lets people walk away with more knowledge of what’s going on in regards to either their own or a loved one’s drinking behaviour.
“So not only are we sort of showing people that you know, your drinking rates are at a hazardous and harmful level, but this is what you can do about it,” she said.
“It’s a great tool and it’s a validated tool … that we know works and so we’re doing some more work on how we can implement that into primary health services.”
As exciting as the outcomes are for the app, Lynette says the project will take many years before it’s used more widely around Australia.
“It’s not quick,” she said.
“This is a project that will be over a five-year period from the time we started to when we write it all.”
This is another of the many lessons Lynette hopes to impart on the new group of doctors and researchers she’s working with at CSU.
Like many other champions for change in the healthcare space, Lynette knows that exciting progress happens in small steps taken over a long period of time.
“[It’s about] how we can improve services for our mob,” she said.
“I’ve had many roadblocks along the way [but] it’s not just a job for me. It’s something that I have an invested interest in.
“There is high burnout in any sort of health industry, whether it’s private or public, because we’re all here wanting to see change. And I think it’s really important that people do look after themselves … go and have a lunch break, go for a walk, take that time, because we do need to rejuvenate ourselves.
“Sometimes, slow and steady wins the race.”
Lynette’s NAIDOC message to remember all year:
“It’s about looking forward, listening to the voice of our past, how can we prevent things that have happened from occurring in the future? It’s working together with everyone for the common goal of improved health and improved services.
“I didn’t know about my Aboriginal heritage. I feel that I wasn’t given my culture because it was hidden so I think we need to embrace or accept everyone having had a different journey. I think that’s also important, because my journey was very, very different to some other Indigenous people’s journeys. So let’s all work together and support each other.”
To mark NAIDOC Week 2024, Women’s Agenda has produced a special edition eMagazine in honour and celebration of incredible First Nations women trailblazing across different sectors in healthcare. Thanks to Charles Sturt University’s First Nations Pathways for its support bringing this eMagazine to life.