ANU med students get taste for rural practice

On Wednesday, August 15, 26 second year ANU medical students attended the annual regional visit as part of a week-long stay at Cooma, with a number of events and activities planned.

The annual visits give budding doctors a taste of what practicing medicine in a rural are entails. Those who continue through the rural stream of the ANU course will return to regional hsopitals for practical experience.

As Bombala and Delegate multi-purpose health services (MPS) don’t have full-time doctor coverage, those placements won’t be here, but the local doctors certainly do their best to make the Bombala region and rural medicine as attractive a prospect as possible.

On Wednesday, a scrumptious  morning tea at the Delegate MPS was provided by Delegate Progress Association.

The students also enjoyed a meet and greet with the association along with a really informative and engaging presentation and clinical visit with Heather Scroope, nurse manager of Delegate MPS.

Afterwards it was on to Bombala for a tour of the MPS and an on-site talk with Dr Colin Pate.

At a lunch for the group and community supporters held at Club Bombala, Dr Pate was also at his best, providing amusing and insightful anecdotes of life as a GP in a rural community.

Other activities and site visits the students undertook during the week included a civic reception with the Snowy Monaro Regional Council, tour of the Cooma Hospital – which can host third year students on placement if they so choose – and health service site visits in Jindabyne and Perisher.

They also heard from regional organisations and businesses about issues faced in the district and the tyranny of distance for health services.

Those talks included Ambulance NSW, Snowy Hydro, the Sir William Hudson Memorial Centre nursing home, Yallambee aged care services, a farm visit at Hill Top and others.