Professor Mills, a nurse of more than 35 years experience, said it was a great way to celebrate the profession.

"It's a really happy day just to recognise the breadth of nursing practice, the diversity of places that people can go and work and the opportunities that that brings for people in their career," she said. "It's a great career and it's been very kind to me over 35 years now."

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Professor Mills said more than 400 RHS students graduated across 11 smaller ceremonies this week.

"It's been a really wonderful week. Everyone's really enjoyed still having the smaller graduation ceremonies, they have been quite intimate," she said.

"We had our future doctors yesterday with the bachelor biomedical science students and also pharmacy, speech pathology, physio, occupational therapy and midwives.

"Today's valedictorian speeches have been quite touching. One for nursing spoke about the fact that they went into lockdown at the end of their first year, so they've really had the last two years of their degree where a lot of it was taught online."

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Adding to Professor Mills' sense of pride was that all the students are already employed and pursuing their careers in the health sector.

"All of them are actually out in practice," she said. "I think that's one thing about the health sciences generally, there are so many jobs in rural health at the moment that there is no shortage of employment. But from the health service perspective, our students are a vital pipeline of workforce for them. Without them they would be very much struggling to really function, I think."

Professor Mills said the Rural Health School's courses were growing in popularity with school leavers.

"We've got increasing demand, which is fantastic," she said. "Certainly in Bendigo every year, we're fully subscribed."

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