Cobar received a good report from a group of visiting medical students who were in town on Friday as part of a rural tour organised by the Rural Doctors Network (RDN).
The RDN organises three Go Rural trips each year and takes university students to visit rural medical facilities and hear from guest speakers, as well as participate in community events.
The visiting group of 20 university healthcare students was made up of almost half studying first year and second year medicine (student doctors) along with nursing students and others studying various allied health fields (Occupational Health, Speech Therapy etc).
They arrived in Cobar on Friday afternoon and were given a tour of the Cobar Health Service. All were impressed with the new hospital, its modern facilities, and the friendly and welcoming staff.
In addition to speaking with the staff, the students also chatted to local paramedics and toured the Mobile CT imaging van.
The Cobar Weekly spoke with a couple of the students, including 26 year old first year medical student, Caitlin Cameron, who grew up in Sydney.
“My mum’s from rural NSW.
“I’ve always had a bit of an interest in rural healthcare,” Caitlin said.
“Shortly after graduating high school, I got a job with the ambulance service as a paramedic, and I moved to the Hunter region.”
Caitlin said she enjoyed working there, she bought a house in Singleton and met and married her husband last year.
“Then I applied for medicine, and I chose a rural program, which is Wollongong for graduate medicine, and I’ve been relocated this year to Bowral as part of this program.”
Caitlin said the Go Rural tour was a great opportunity to meet the local health professionals and hear their stories.
“It’s unbridled and privileged access.
“The Ambos also stayed back and extra hour to chat with us.”
Caitlin said while her university cohort will do many rural placements as part of their rural training program, they won’t however get to come to Cobar as the hospital doesn’t have a training program.
“Which is honestly a bit of a shame because I really like it here,” Caitlin said.
Caitlin said she’d found Cobar residents to be really welcoming, and said the town was “really pretty and really clean”.
The Weekly also spoke with Shelby Mitchell, who is studying her Bachelor of Nursing online.
“I grew up and work in Kempsey District Hospital, as a theatre nurse, as an Enrolled Nurse,” Shelby said.
While Kempsey is classed as coastal rural, Shelby is very keen to branch out and work in a rural remote area.
She said the Go Rural trip has been a really good introduction for her to Western NSW.
“Having this trip, it kind of gives you a taster of each town and can show you what your future might look like and how you can get involved in the community as well.
“Having the events, like, having dinner tonight with the locals, seeing the hospital, that’s not something that you get to do when you just go visit a town you’re thinking about working in.
“With this tour we’re getting a bit of an understanding and knowledge of what your future could look like.
“I’m really looking forward to coming out here and definitely doing some placements.
“As a nurse, I can pretty much do my placement anywhere.”
Caitlin said she won’t have the opportunity to work in Cobar while she’s still studying, however she will take back the information she’s learned on this trip to the Woolongong School of Medicine for it to be distributed to other students, including law students.
As part of last week’s Go Rural tour, students also visited Orange, Parkes, Trundle, Nyngan, Narromine, Peak Hill and Dubbo.
Caitlin and Shelby said they could see a couple of advantages to coming to Cobar to work and live over other towns they had visited.
“Here you can see the support for young women in healthcare, which is a big one, especially if you are moving out on your own,” Caitlin said.
“There’s also that there’s a job for everybody, no matter who you’re coming along with, there’s very good chance there’s a job for your partner here,” she said.
Shelby agreed there would be lots of opportunities for her partner in Cobar if she decided to come and work here.
“He works in construction, so both of our skills are very transferrable,” Shelby said.
“Everyone has told me just come out here and then figure it out when you get here.
“We have work, we want to give you work, which has been great.”
Shelby is also keen to take up the challenges that she would encounter working in a rural remote hospital.
“Working in a big hospital, you can pretty much call anyone at any time and say, oh, I need you to come and do this.
“Whereas out here, if something goes wrong, you’re it, you have to know how to fix it or at least to deal with it,” Shelby said.
“From what I can see out here, a lot of the facilities are nurse-led, or fully virtual care.
“So it is the nurse’s responsibility and you learn so many skills from that.
“That’s what really interests me, gaining a stronger skill set and just taking up the challenge.
“I’ve also found that the further west you go, the better the community spirit is and the better the communities get,” Shelby said.
Go Rural is funded by the Australian Government Department of Health, Disability and Ageing and administered by RDN. This trip was generously sponsored by Harmony Gold Mining Company Ltd.