From a young age I was pretty interested in medicine as a career.
I loved so many different disciplines of medicine that I
found it really hard to choose a particular interest area.
That's what led me to general practice.
You get to do so many different things you never quite know, from day to day
what's gonna walk through the door.
As a kid growing up I'd kind of walk through the shopping centres
with my mum
and she'd often get stopped by, you know a familiar face as we walked
away, she'd lean over and say, "oh I delivered that girl.
I think I probably really look up to my mom and so began my pursuit of
rural career in medicine.
Mackay Base Hospital is where I've done most of my training.
Prior to this year, I undertook an events skill training position in rural
generalist's surgery.
I got a lot more hands-on access, which I
think greatly improved my ability to to work after supervised training.
Generalist skills is what you need to work in this
environment and say we want to build those skills into every
doctor or student who comes to our office and feel confident in
managing trauma patients as well as putting a band aid on a wound.
Slightly different thing about the Mackay region is that we do
have registrars spread from sort of Bowen down to Serena.
It means that when we're doing teaching sessions well often have
video links to registrars who might be in Bowen or Proserpine,
Airlie Beach and then Serena as well.
I think that's really good for teaching because it means that
there are more people to bounce ideas off
and then working in slightly different
communities, they're going to have a different slant on things.
Unfortunately the community suffered through the Tropical Cyclone
Debby recently so that was a great in cost to our whole
community, but also our community here at the hospital of staff, many of
whom lost their own homes.
So very impressed how our team can
come together to ensure the safety of our community during
most difficult times
Certainly, if you are keen to make a difference in a
big way to a small community, it's very easy to do.
I don't think there's any other fellowship that allows such diversity.
There's so many different avenues you can take and you can make
it what you want and it can really fit into your lifestyle.
I'm able to live quite close to Airlie Beach.
Being a coastal town there's lots to see and do in a tourist town as well.
Plenty of restaurants to go to different areas to walk along.
There's no limit to the places that we can explore here in this region
I love getting out to Cape Hillsborough
also, yeah taking advantage of the Whitsunday region
not too far away.
Being close to the reef is the ability to get
out on the water whether that be over to Hamilton Island to relax
or even some reef fishing.
We often ride up to Shoal Point as well
Lamberts Lookout is always a good place to stop for a breath.
But more importantly, it's just the staff that we have here
and not just the doctors but the nursing staff, dedicated
to care for our community.
So yeah, we work here, we live here,
we feel this is our home.