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@ElsevierAUS

do a good history because 80% of your

diagnosing can be done from a history

if you do it well. They’d be the three big

things I’d tell a student going rurally.

What has been one of your

best experiences working in

these remote communities?

The best experience I’ve had in a rural

setting is when I worked as a student

on placement with a GP at St George.

St George is a small town six hours

from Brisbane and I was lucky to work

with a GP who had worked in the town

for 40 years. The best part of working

with her was that I got to see how she

approached her patients and their care.

As an example, a patient came to see her

who had amental health issue. Shewas not

just able to treat that personwithwhat they

toldher intheactual interview, shewas able

to treat them from a holistic point of view.

She knew their mother, their father, their

brothers their sisters, and she was able to

globally, in a way, look after this patient.

And it just astounds me at the end of the

day that we saw about 20 patients, every

single patient had a different issue - there

was not one issue that was repeated. So

people who say when you go rural you

only do the same thing over and over,

they’re definitely wrong. Every patient

we saw was different, but every patient

we saw, she knew their background.

She knew, they’re the teacher that worked

at such and such and it’s been really tough

down at the school lately so that’s probably

why she’s come to us with that problem.

The biggest advantages

I see for living in a rural

area would be the fact that

you’re part of a community.

That sense of close-knit

community, that’s a big

draw card for me

.

That ability to have the knowledge of how

to treat her patient better and how to look

after her patient, the ability to holistically

look after them and the continuity of care

that you could see she had for all of her

patients. That was a big wow moment

for me, that’s what really cemented

my idea of being a rural GP because,

you just can’t do that in the city and so

that was a really big moment for me.

What have you experienced

in remote Australia that

has changed your world

view?

Something that really changed my world

view was when I was on placement in

a little island called Elcho Island. It’s a

little island off the top coast of Australia,

about a two hours flight from Darwin.

It’s a community of about two and a half

thousand Aboriginal people and when