My Rural Story | Week Six | Shannon Springer

Probably the third thing is really try and become immersed in the local community. Community life is quite small, people get to know who you are, and it really works both ways. Try to get to know your community. Be involved in local activities, local events, also be involved in the school. I think it’s a great opportunity for building rapport with your community and you’ll get a lot out of that and the community will certainly respect and welcome any visitors that actually do that. What have you experienced in remote Australia that has changed your world view? The things that I enjoy about working in these areas is even getting to work. For example, I’ve done some work on Palm Island. You have to hop on

a plane in the morning with your stethoscope and then go to work. Working at Charleville, offering services to Quilpie, you have to hop in a car at six in the morning and drive two hours and make sure you don’t hit too many kangaroos. That’s just to get to work. So, I think these sorts of things make it what it is. It’s more than just hoping in your car in the city with your coffee and going to work in traffic. It’s the environment, it’s the people and I think it’s the journey on the way to the patient. It’s not just about the patient and the medicine, it’s everything wrapped around it. And, I think for me, I had those ‘aha’ moments on the way to work. It’s not always with the patient, it’s not always in the clinic. It’s what happens on the periphery, on the outside, in the hallways that makes it for me.

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