Patients at Mudgee Medical Centre and South Mudgee Surgery will once again have a few new faces to get used to with medical students from the University of Wollongong starting work in Mudgee earlier this month.
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Michael Stone and Alice Thomas will be on-hand to help at Mudgee Medical Centre, while Vanessa Hewitt will hone her skills at South Mudgee Surgery over the next year.
This is the fourth year the University of Wollongong has sent its students to Mudgee as part of their course and all three admitted that Mudgee was high on their list of placement preferences.
“Mudgee was actually the first preference for all of us,” said Vanessa.
While here, the students will take part in parallel consulting with the doctors at each practice. Patients who consent to parallel consulting will have their case looked over by Michael, Alice or Vanessa first before a patient’s doctor attends the consultation and listens as the students present the patient’s case.
Regional academic co-ordinator for the medical school, Dr Gary Moore, says the students are near the end of their training, come with a lot of experience and hence become quite useful in both the hospital and the medical practices.
“It’s a real benefit for those in the community as well as the students,” he said.
“The placement gives them time to become engaged with the community. It also gives us the chance to promote rural general practice as a career path.”
Michael, Alice and Vanessa all agreed that feedback from previous students was one of the main reasons they had chosen Mudgee.
“The previous three years have all had good things to say about Mudgee. We haven’t heard a bad word about it,” Michael said.
“And so far everything they’ve said has been true,” Alice added.
The culture surrounding the Mudgee region was another draw for the three students, with each looking to “immerse themselves in the community” according to Michael.
“I think we’ll have a really good work/life balance while living here,” Alice said, something that all three agree is hard to find whilst living and working in the city because of the different workloads of the doctors there.
“They come to the community for a year and we really hope that because of their experiences while here that they’ll come back in the future”, Mudgee Medical Centre Practice manager Colleen Best said.
“It’s a fantastic experience for them.”
Mrs Best says that with many of the Mudgee region’s doctors thinking about retirement within the next five years, the region has to make sure we have doctors for the future.
While in Mudgee, the three students will be staying in the University of Wollongong student doctor house on Lions Drive
“The house has made it all the more welcoming,” Michael said.
