Doctors visit Dubbo to get a taste for farm life and rural hazards

On Wednesday, May 18 registrars from around Western NSW who wish to specialise as GP's got a taste for farm life and rural hazards.

The farm education day, facilitated by general practice training provider GP Synergy and the Royal Flying Doctor Service (South Eastern Section - RFDSSE), is designed to give the doctors greater insight into the physical and mental health challenges of living and working on farms.

Dr Vanessa Moran GP Synergy Director of Education and Training ACT & NSW said it's important for doctors working in rural areas to understand the communities that they are working and living in.

"Days like today are important for a number of reasons, first of all learning about how amazing a farm is and how wonderful community and farming life is," Dr Moran said.

Dr Moran said it was also the first opportunity the doctors in Western NSW have had to meet each other and be together since COVID.

"It's really important to create a network of doctors in this area," she said.

"It gets us excited to have more doctors so we can have healthier communities."

Dr Moran also said that it was important to show the doctors what rural communities are like to try and keep them and "entice them to stay".

As a RFDSSE Medical Officer, Dr Kiri Oates knows the type of hazards prevalent in the bush, such as injury from machinery or livestock.

"We have produced a really fun and exciting day for our registrars who are working out in rural and remote areas, it's the RFDS's bread and butter to go out to these really remote and isolated areas to take all the gear and we're ready for any situation but the GP is not quite there in what they may have to do so this is introducing them to farm yard emergencies they might encounter," Dr Oates said.

Dr Oates said the day was about learning who the doctors can call in an emergency, who else in the community can help, what resources they might have access to and introducing them to farm yard equipment.

"Some of the doctors are from Sydney who admitted they hadn't been to a farm before so it's important they get to know the environment before they do their rotations out here," she said.

One of the GP trainees, Dr Ben Ryall is used to country life having grown up in rural Oxfordshire in the United Kingdom. After completing his medical studies and hospital years in Orange, he and his family have made it home.

"These are the kind of things none of us have dealt with before, especially not in a first aid sense, and obviously since we're all in rural locations and farming is a big industry here, we might come across accidents or be the first responders to these things," he said.

"I have an interest in emergency medicine and can see myself working in more remote locations in the future so getting hands-on experience of these kinds of trauma and emergency first aid care is really useful."

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