My Rural Story

And I think that in an urban context, even though you will see the same people every day, the comradery isn’t the same as you see when you’re in the remote fly in - fly out circuit, and that is quite exciting. What advice would you give to students going on a rural or remote placement? Make sure that you bring toys with you. Particularly, plastic ones that you can easily clean, because often you’re dealing with lots of little kids, certainly in ear health, that’s something that we deal with a lot. So, you need to have something to entertain the kids and then the parents are happy and you’re happy and the kids are happy. And also, stickers and that sort of thing. Just having that with you at all times means that if you do have a patient and you are a bit nervous you can make the atmosphere a lot less tense, and you feel more comfortable,

and you obviously build rapport at the same time, so that’s quite good. The second piece of advice I would give is to make sure that you walk in and introduce yourself to all of the local staff that are working in the health clinic. Whether that be the Nurse, the Indigenous Health Worker, the Doctors or even the cleaner, the locals really do know so much about their community. This can range from practical questions like ‘have you seen this child?’ to ‘I didn’t really know if I could ask this patient this question’ or ‘they looked a bit strangely when I said that, is that ok for me to say?’. Often I’ve found in all of the communities I’ve been to they’ve been really helpful and always really happy to help out whenever you ask. It is really important to remember, in these clinics, that for a lot of these communities, they have different health services coming in

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