RCSWA Esperance students Hannah Coenen, Kate Marquis, Ashley Meagher and Mitchell Dowling. Photo: Nikki Bailey.
Medical students have traded the Perth city life for scrubs in Esperance as part of a Rural Clinical School of Western Australia (RCSWA) program to attract future doctors to regional areas.
Select students spend one year on the job with local practitioners, rotating through GP practices, the hospital, the midwifery clinic, ambulatory care and specialist clinics.
In January, RCSWA’s Esperance branch welcomed four students in the second last year of their degree.
Kate Marquis, Ashley Meagher, Mitchell Dowling and Hannah Coenen reflected on their Esperance experience so far.
What is your favourite thing about Esperance?
KATE (originally from Esperance)
“It’s just a nice change of pace.
“Perth can be a bit of a rat race and you always feel like you’re competing with people to make the most progress and fit the most into your day, whereas down here it’s a bit more slow and you can take time to smell the roses and admire the beautiful place we are living in and not just be ‘on’ all the time which is very valuable.”
“I should probably say my parents as well, shouldn’t I – shoutout Mum and Dad.”
MITCH (originally from Kalgoorlie)
“The ability to just interact with so many people from the community.
“One of the best things this year has been the sporting community because I’ve been playing footy for Gibson.
“Footy is clearly one of the biggest things in Esperance and you can see that on Saturday mornings when everyone’s walking around town kitted up with their uniforms and I think it’s really good for the community to get around a sport.”
ASHLEY (originally from Vancouver, BC) and HANNAH (originally from Perth)
“Bread local!”
What has been the highlight of your studies?
KATE
“Definitely the births — we do an obstetric long case where we follow a patient through their pregnancy and attend the birth and their appointments after.
“Forming a connection with a woman and her partner and her other children and seeing her welcome a new child into the world — nothing can prepare you for how special that is.
“I cried for hours, it was so emotional and so beautiful and it really affirmed that I was in the right career path.”
MITCH
“Being able to jump into the theatre with everyone during caesareans and surgical procedures.
“It’s a very hands-on experience and being able to help out with different procedures has been really engaging.”
ASHLEY
“I would say the doctors — it’s a bit weird — but just how every single doctor has had such a broad range of experience and brought different skills and just seeing how they can adapt those skills.
“How they bring an asset to town in different ways, I find that very valuable and I love learning from all the different experiences.”
HANNAH
“I think it’s been working with such an incredible team of doctors here who are all from such different backgrounds and have all had their own journeys as to how they’ve got into medicine and into practicing in Esperance.
“I think an element of it is we’ve all been pushed out of our comfort zone at some stage in the year and you can do that feeling confident that even if it is something that really challenges you or makes you feel uncomfortable, you’ve got such a supportive team behind you to be there to help lead the way.”
Have your career aspirations changed?
KATE
“[Rural work] is very appealing.
“We walk into the GP practice and it’s almost like a family — the GP nurses and the reception staff and the doctors are just so lovely and friendly and they have baked goods and cups of coffee and it’s such a beautiful place to work.”
MITCH
“I think it’s just reaffirmed my passion for wanting to go rural and be a jack of all trades and do a bit of everything.”
ASHLEY
“I think it’s really shown how being rural you can do a bit of everything because sometimes in the city you can just get a bit stuck in that one role. Whereas we have the opportunity here to do a bit of everything, and it’s really cool and nice to change things up which is something for me to definitely consider in the future.”
HANNAH
“It’s becoming very attractive and something now I would seriously consider as a career pathway.
“I was always pretty set on returning to do rural work at some stage but I guess getting this exposure to ‘rural generalist’ which is the pathway where you become a GP in a rural town and have a pretty wide scope of practice.”
What have you learnt about rural healthcare that you weren’t expecting?
MITCH
“The ability for rural doctors to do so much with so little.
“Their ability to use all the resources they can and still have such good outcomes I think is really commendable.
“Obviously in the emergency setting there’s not as many beds, not as many resources, staffing is always tricky and they have to work with what they’ve got.”
ASHLEY
“I think it’s really amazing how the GPs in town really do their best to compensate and do as much groundwork as possible…
“Making sure they get the right bloods and investigations done that the specialist will need to look at, because sometimes when you go to a specialist they will say ‘you need to do this and that before we can actually do anything’ so the GPs make sure all that groundwork is done.”
HANNAH
“I think a big thing is seeing the continuity of care.
“The same GPs in town are the GPs in the emergency department, they’re helping deliver babies, they’re doing surgeries, you see them in their own clinics.
“You don’t get that continuity of care in the city and to have those really strong community relationships really shows a whole other dimension of medicine.
“You’ve got to have a pretty broad scope and that ultimately ends up better for patient care because they’ve built those relationships and have built that sense of familiarity with them.”
Kate, Mitch, Ashley and Hannah will continue their training and studies in Esperance until the end of November.
