I have created this page in the hope of facilitating some conversations about working outside of the major cities in Australia and I have links to some of the good work that is already underway. There are a number of organisations that can help the general practice workforce to consider their broader work options, including working in the bush.
I am not an expert.
I have very limited experience in this space.
But I'm happy to share my experience in the hope that we can demystify what it means to be a GP working in regional, rural, and remote Australia. Along the way, I hope we can bust some myths and explore some options.
If you have experiences you wish to share or links that will be helpful, please contact me via email (email@gps-can.com.au) I welcome your voice.
I will start by using a series of posts that I placed on the closed Facebook group, GPs Down Under in late March 2024. In keeping with the rules of that group, when I have quoted other doctors, I have done so with their explicit consent. These are my real time reflections on my decision to step beyond my comfort zone and work outside of the city in the town of Goondiwindi, QLD. My reports from each day were written on the day, mostly within an hour of finishing work and always before dinner.
I chose to work in the town that was just over 4 hours drive from my house.
I chose to work in the town that has a hospital with an emergency department that is staffed 24/7.
I chose to work in the town that has a group general practice and to work within that group as a general GP. I am not a rural generalist. I do not have any procedural skills except those I learned at medical school and in the hospitals in the 1980s and I found that my skills were adequate for the tasks I encountered.
Whatever your situation, I want to encourage you to think outside the square and consider what you have to offer to the significant percentage of the Australian population that lives outside of the city. If it’s not for you for now, that’s just fine. But don’t think that it’s not for you forever – times change and opportunities, such as telehealth from a city GP to patients in the country (this simply did not exist pre-Covid), may open up and who knows where the road will lead you!
Just home from another 3 weeks in Broken Hill with the Royal Flying Doctor Service. Always a fun team to work with and sooo much medicine to be practiced, well supported with the retrieval team and the local ED too.
Pic of the local emu family outside our house last week!