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Dr Marty Ryan has certainly found his ‘happy place.” A UNSW graduate who spent the last two years of his degree on a placement at Wagga Wagga Base Hospital, he’s now very happily working as a General Practice trainee in nearby Temora, which is known by some as the friendliest town in Australia. An avid sportsman who is as at home on a bicycle as he is on a rugby field, Dr Ryan says he’s so enamoured with supportive small-town life and his generalist medical career that he now can’t imagine wanting to work anywhere else.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Asha Heffernan was raised in Wagga Wagga, but after time spend at boarding school, a year travelling India and then another studying in Sydney, she was somewhat cautious about returning home. But it’s now a decision she doesn’t regret. Asha had always had an interest in pursuing medicine and was encouraged by a best friend who shared her ambition. Stumbling at the first entrance exam, she applied herself to a clinical science degree until she was accepted to medical school in the following year. Now in her second year at the Rural Clinical School back in Wagga, she is overjoyed with her choice. Not only does she get to benefit from the much wider clinical experience she is gaining, but she can also surround herself with supportive family and friends.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

An international student who was born in India and grew up in Kuwait, Karunya Subramaniyan was well into an engineering degree in Singapore when she saw a poster that changed her life. She calls it her “eureka” moment. The advertisement was calling on engineers to consider postgraduate study in medicine, a career path Karunya had always thought was beyond her reach. With extended family in NSW, she applied to, and was accepted by, the University of Sydney. After hearing glowing reports from her peers, and with fond memories of her father’s rural village in southern India, Karunya chose to undertake a rural placement in Dubbo, and it lived up to her high expectations. Here, she says, she was integrated into the hospital team much faster than would have happened in a bigger city, that she felt instant camaraderie, and has experienced “heaps” of teaching and clinical experience. Her advice to any other young student — particularly international students — is to “just go for it,” because rural placement is something everyone should experience. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

His parents were as shocked as they were pleased when an 8-year-old Suud Nahdi proclaimed that he was going to be a doctor, and the little boy from Tanzania grew to become the first in his family to attain tertiary education. It was while he was studying in Canada that he first became interested in faraway Australia, and it was “on a whim” that he looked up Sydney University medical school and put in an application. Several years down the track he says it was the greatest decision of his life, that his training has been far better than he expected, and that he has found somewhere he feels he belongs. Suud can’t recommend an extended rural placement highly enough, because of the broad and exciting exposure he is receiving, the warmth of the people he works with and treats, and the Dubbo lifestyle he has grown to love. He says the experience is just what an “ideal” medical school training should be. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dr Shannon Nott is emphatic in his advice for anyone considering rural GP training: he says it’s an incredibly rewarding career path where you get to choose your own adventure. And adventure is something Dr Nott is familiar with. A Churchill Fellowship scholar who has travelled to some of Earth’s most remote places to study the intersection of technology and remote medicine, he’s now working as a rural generalist, often travelling to remote outback airstrips with the Royal Flying Doctor Service. Training in the city, he met and was influenced by “incredible” mentors due to his involvement in the Rural Health Club at the University of NSW, and then the National Rural Health Student Network. But he also gets to quench his desire to work on policy and big projects through his role as a Director of Medical Services. He says the bush has always called to him, and he is happier in a rural environment. He now lives with his family on a property just outside of his base in Dubbo. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Participating on the NSW Rural Doctors Network was a “no brainer” for Dr Ariah Steel, who says she was attracted to the program because of the wide experience she’d gain as well as the financial support. Dr Steel had started out dreaming of being a presenter on a TV travel show, but after doing work experience with an orthopaedic surgeon her mind was instantly changed. Now happily ensconced in the Murrumbidgee Rural Generalist Training Pathway, Dr Steel says that, in spite of growing up in the city, she’s now a complete convert to rural life due to the freedom and flexibility it has given her. In fact, she says she’ll never live in a major city again. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dr Nicholas Ireland’s journey through life to becoming a NSW Regional Doctors Network Cadet has been a long and demanding one. Expelled from boarding school in year 11, he first became a sheet metalworker on what he describes as a subsistence wage. But it was while he was working as a FIFO welder on oil rigs off the Western Australia coast that he realised he had to do something else with his life. So he quit and applied for a university foundation course and got such good marks he was accepted into medicine via a rural pathway. This boy from the bush, supported professionally and financially by the cadetship program, is now well on the way to achieving his childhood dream of becoming a rural generalist doctor, planning to settle with his wife in Dubbo. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When asked what advice she’d give to anyone considering a NSW Rural Doctors Network Cadetship, Dr Kirbie Storrier is emphatic: “Do it, apply for it, 100%, right now, you should have already applied, what are you waiting for?” Dr Storrier had dreamed of becoming a doctor since childhood because her farmer father, who has a chronic disease, had found it difficult to get the treatment he needed. She says she felt incredibly supported through her RDN Cadetship, where she and her partner were treated like family, and that it was an “amazing opportunity” where she gained close mentors who have continued on through her medical career. Now a psychiatry registrar at Dubbo Health Service, Kirbie says she’s grateful to have been able to work with people who understood her dreams, her goals and her values. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Edwina Fry was on work experience with a country GP when she witnessed a baby being born. It was a turning point in her life. She says she developed new respect for the human body and started to consider becoming a doctor herself. Now a final-year medical student studying with Deakin University, she came to medicine via an undergraduate degree and entry via the GAMSAT, which proved a hurdle, but not an insurmountable one. Edwina is undertaking a rural placement at Warrnambool in western Victoria, where the lifestyle is a definite attraction, and where the variety of clinical work, she says, will make her a better physician. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Pepe Mifsud is the first to admit that he didn’t give himself enough credit. Throughout his childhood and formative years he’d watched his GP mother take care of their community, and he’d seen the way she and her colleagues were respected. But Pepe just didn’t think he’d ever be able to get into medicine himself, so he embarked on a commerce degree. Medicine, however, kept calling him, and he decided to study and sit the GAMSAT. Raised a rural boy on WA’s Margaret River, he chose a university with a rural focus: The University of Wollongong, with a view to undertaking a long-term rural placement.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If there’s one thing Dr Robin Williams is proud of, it’s providing medical care to a rural workforce that’s crucial to national food security. Happily ensconced in Molong in the Central West of NSW, and working between the local hospital and his own practice, Dr Williams believes all people — even farmers in remote locations — deserve equity in health care. A London-trained GP who hails from Wales, he decided to move his young family to rural Australia after he and his wife fell in love with the landscape and the lifestyle while on a placement. It was a desire to live near a world-renowned musician that led him to Molong, where he has established a community-supporting practice, and from where he works, on various boards, to improve community health. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A local emergency doctor called her his “apprentice.” A determined young woman from a country town, who had wanted to be a doctor since early childhood, had done a first aid course so that she could help out at local football games. Many years later, Ashley is a fifth-year medical student at the University of Adelaide who says anyone can follow their dream to become a doctor so long as they have the ambition and tenacity. Now on a placement in outback Broken Hill, she’s a great advocate for working in rural and regional Australia and strongly recommends the mixture of relaxed lifestyle and broad medical experiences. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Few people from Georgia Sims country town had gone to university, and she’d never heard of anyone studying medicine. But with her “anything is achievable” attitude and the support of family and friends, she’s now in her fourth year of a medicine degree, having spent time in the city and in an array of rural placements. Starting out in undergraduate paramedicine, it was while she was volunteering at a music festival that she was inspired by the leadership and the skills of a doctor supervising a resuscitation. So, Georgia applied to study medicine and, once accepted, found that her life-long pledge not to return to the bush was broken, thanks to the lifestyle and professional advantages rural practice brings. It’s been a steep learning curve, both clinically and in a personal sense, but with the most difficult days now well behind her, Georgia Sims is looking forward to a rewarding rural and regional career. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It was sage advice from an English teacher that saw Dr Grace Nelson achieve her aspirations. She was counselled to not only celebrate her good grades, but also work hard to shrink the margin between those good marks and a perfect score of 100 per cent next time. Since primary school Dr Nelson had dreamed of becoming a rural doctor, and, through university, she realised the profession — with its intellectual rigour, contact with people and mission to help and to cure — was a perfect fit for her personality. So, she immersed herself in regional training, and after gaining experience in several centres, landed in Dubbo, which she says “ticks all the boxes.” Now, not only is she gaining a wide variety of clinical experience, but she gets to work with a close and varied team in the relaxed regional environment that she has always loved. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One of the first NSW Rural Doctors Network (RDN) cadets in NSW, Dr Louis Christie only intended staying in Orange in Central NSW for a couple of years, but he found it far too attractive, both personally and professionally, to leave. He’d quickly made friends in the welcoming community and fell for the regional lifestyle. After identifying the need for an emergency physician in the area, he launched into a speciality that saw him develop a wide clinical competence, as he, among other things, crossed the state in the CareFlight helicopter. Emergency medicine had everything Dr Christie wanted in a career: it was intellectually rigorous and allowed him to follow his ambition to be a rock for patients and their families in times of crisis. But young men can think of themselves as bulletproof and working under high pressure for a service in its then infancy eventually took a personal toll, so he says he needed to find an alternative. It was while he was working briefly in hospital administration that a wise mentor directed him toward palliative care. Here was another speciality that allowed him challenging clinical decision making at the same time as engaging with people — patients and their families — at what could be the worst time of their lives. He could still make an intolerable situation better. Dr Christie says palliative allowed him to be the doctor he was meant to be.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Born and trained in the UK, Dr Lauren Bradbury came to Australia to experience new things. A short visit turned into a permanent commitment when she experienced the joys of working as a rural medical oncologist in regional NSW. First thinking about becoming an emergency doctor, and then a surgeon, it was while she was doing an internship in geriatric care that she discovered the professional fulfillment of working holistically with patients. On a rotation, Dr Bradbury subsequently discovered that medical oncology “spoke” to her both scientifically and with its patient-oriented practice. Now loving her work in a collegiate, rural environment, she spends her time working in and outside of her hospital, conducting outreach programmes with a wide variety of patients across a large part of central NSW. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Even though he was established in a good job as a radiographer, Will Anderson still secretly harboured what he calls a life-long ambition to be a doctor. He didn’t want to be a “passenger” in the health care system — he wanted to be in the driver’s seat. So, in spite of the fact he’d just invested in a house, he decided to leave radiography behind, and to study to become a doctor. In this episode, Will talks about the huge efforts he went to for GAMSAT, and how it has all been worth it. He’s now happily undertaking a rural training placement in his hometown of Dubbo, where he gets to experience working in a major trauma centre that is also serving a diverse population across huge area of NSW. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dr James Sterrey’s path to regional medicine wasn’t a direct one. As a city boy with a science degree, it was while employed as a research scientist, on Parkinson’s Disease, that he realised working directly with patients, rather than in a laboratory, would be more fulfilling. So, he turned to medicine, and left Sydney for a regional placement in Orange. There he found a collegiate environment where junior doctors were both treated well and given broad enough experience to really find their wings. And he quickly grew to love the regional lifestyle, and the time it gave him to pursue his hobbies. After spending periods working as a doctor as far afield as Broken Hill and Alice Springs, he’s now set to become a regionally based ophthalmologist, happily ensconced in a speciality he says offers a wide variety of work, both for his mind and his hands. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Fascinated by what she calls the “mad” characters in children’s’ books, Dr Danielle Winch knew that she wanted to be a Psychiatrist when she was just eight years old. Her initial ambition was to work in paediatrics but it was working with older people where she found her calling. Now working in her “dream job” in and around Orange in NSW, Dr Winch says she has happily become the “quintessential bush doctor,” looking after the needs of elderly psychiatric patients in a huge array of settings. A doctor who is not afraid to be outspoken, Dr Winch now advocates against the ageism her patients experience. Her advice for young doctors is that the key to a good career is to make sure you love what you do. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

While working as a lawyer with Indigenous clients in Western Australia’s remote north, Rafael Szumer says he became frustrated that his clients’ health issues affected their ability to attend appointments with him. A strong believer in social justice, he decided to swap the law for medicine so that he could help them more directly. Now studying in a two-year placement at the School of Rural Health in Orange, he describes the change from courts to hospital training as a bigger shock than he expected. But with that behind him, he’s now happily ensconced in a region he loves, doing work that he adores, and complimenting his practice with volunteer charity work for the Indigenous community. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.