As I write and re-write this blog, I don’t know where to start! I have experienced and learnt so much already it is hard to choose ‘the best bits’ to avoid writing a novel of what I have seen and done so far. › Continue reading…

I’m writing my final blog post sitting on the train back to Melbourne on a beautiful sunny afternoon looking out over the beautiful green farmland and large blue skies and feeling surprisingly sad about leaving Bairnsdale.  I didn’t expect to get attached so quickly but I’ve meet some amazing people and had a lot of fun on my clinical placements over the last two weeks.  I am very grateful to the Pat Farry Trust for this opportunity, which has reaffirmed my love for rural medicine and the opportunities it provides. › Continue reading…

Kalgoorlie is a town of 30,000 people, six hours inland by road from Perth. The town was founded during the gold rush and has the wide streets and early 19th century Australian architecture typical of outback towns. Green grass is a rare sighting in Kalgoorlie instead red earth covers what isn’t concrete and ubiquitous gum trees line most streets. Walking around the streets you feel as though your shoes and trousers are going to take on the rusty hue. › Continue reading…

After a weekend of exploration and recuperation I was excited come Monday morning to join the general medicine team. The day started off with the morning meeting where we discussed the patients on the ward. After a busy weekend we had thirty patients to visit on our ward round. › Continue reading…

I left you last time on a quiet Thursday night in Kalgoorlie, (which I am now going to call ‘Kal’ like the locals do. Partly because I almost feel like a local, partly also because Kalgoorlie is a pain to type). So now I have an entire weekend and a full week on the paediatric team to document, which means this blog post features significantly more R and R and some Australian sites. › Continue reading…

This week has been a mixture of medicine, culture, sight-seeing, socializing and lots of eating; everything anyone could ever want out of a rural medical cultural exchange. My clinical timetable this week was a mixture of Emergency Department, time in theatre and one and a half days spent at the GEGAC (gee-jack, a.k.a. Gippsland and East Gippsland Aboriginal Co-operative) and then I spent Friday with the students in their tutorials. › Continue reading…

I almost didn’t make it to Sale on the train. I thought I was doing so well navigating the local transport until I missed my bus. After 3 hours in the train, I got off expecting to transfer to another train. I waited and waited. I thought the next train was to depart at 4.15pm. At 4.20 I realised there was no train and I was meant to have taken the bus. Lucky for me, there were too many passengers traveling to Sale and they had to call a taxi that the railway line was paying for. This worked in my favour, as I had missed that bus, and the next one was 4 hours away. › Continue reading…

It’s been a whirlwind, not-quite-over-yet, first week in Kalgoorlie. I arrived on Saturday night, expecting that I would have a day to check out what the town had to offer. Little did I know that in Australia, everything is shut down on Sunday, so I was forced to appreciate some buildings from outside instead. › Continue reading…

After a jam-packed, whirlwind four days in Melbourne city, seeing the sights, drinking lots of coffees, exploring the multiple hidden lane-way bars and catching up with old friends and family, I was well ready for a retreat back to rural life. › Continue reading…

The last three months of my life have been an absolute whirlwind of adventure. When organizing my elective I wanted to choose placements that would expand my medical knowledge and improve my clinical skills, but most of all challenge me. The Falkland Islands and Nepal fulfilled those requirements perfectly. › Continue reading…