Career options

>> Dr Cameron Hoare:

My name’s Cameron Hoare. I’m the Medical Superintendent of Cloncurry Hospital.

I work part-time for Queensland Health, and I own the private practice in town. This is what we call a dual employer model. So it means that our registrars can be employed by Queensland Health and work at the practice, so they don’t lose their Queensland Health entitlements when they move into general practice. You get to tackle the best of both worlds.

I was going into emergency medicine, and then I saw what awesomeness rural medicine is — and the variety and things I can do out here and the changes I can make. You get to practice at the top of your scope. You know, cardiac arrest — I get to handle it. Stroke — get to handle it. Continuity of care — you get to follow up with your patients.

I do skin flaps, scopes, I do occupational medicine, I do mental health. You name it, I do it. And you can see the difference that you make in a small town.

I live with my husband. I own my own home in Cloncurry, and we have two fur babies. I’ll be honest — work-life balance is challenging when you’re the medical super and you own the practice. However, I do make sure I get weekends off most of the time, except for when I’m on call.

And for fun — you know, I either get away, or my simple activity is every day, if I’m not on call, I walk the dogs around the dam. There are some beautiful walks around here. I do parkrun on Saturdays when I’m not on call. Yeah, we have one of the most remote parkruns in Australia that’s well run by a volunteer team.

My experience in the town and the history of how long people have stayed — I think says that this is a very liveable community in Cloncurry.

One thing I haven’t mentioned that is very important is remuneration. While it’s not everything, it is very important. Registrars at Cloncurry, because they’re employed under a WQPHN model, are some of the highest paid registrars probably in Queensland. There is responsibility that comes with that, and there is on call, but you are supported throughout it.

I think the shared characteristics are that you’re supportive and willing to give it a go. It doesn’t have to be forever. But if you are happy to talk to people, make friends and look after one another — that’s all you really need. You know, it doesn’t take you to be special. It just takes you to be nice.

[Text on screen] North West Hospital and Health Service. Queensland Government.

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>> Hannah:

My name is Hannah. I'm an Allied Health Clinical Lead here at the hospital with a background of Occupational Therapy.

Originally from Brisbane, but I’ve been here a bit over 3 years now. When university placements came out, I definitely was the first to say, “Send me anywhere outside of Brisbane.” So I came here for a secondment from another hospital, and I was coming to be a Senior Occupational Therapist.

They gave me a taste of being a generalist, which I absolutely loved, and I knew essentially from then on that I wanted to have the opportunity to really use all of my different OT skills and not be restricted to a certain area.

I think it definitely creates the perfect opportunity to be a generalist. Every day is so different — whether or not we’re seeing patients in ICU who are more acutely unwell, our rehab patients who have had a stroke, our home visits for minor mods — you name it, OT has a space here at the hospital. And so, variety is the spice of life.

I know that at a lot of the hospitals, you might be more confined to just a medical ward or a rehab ward for a period of time, whereas here, every day you sometimes get to do all of it in one. And so it’s definitely very exciting.

We really have the flexibility to be quite innovative with our care. A typical home in Brisbane isn’t a typical home in Doomadgee, and so thinking about how we can support our patients to get home somewhere really remote is very different to trying to get someone home in the middle of Brisbane.

So being able to get some creativity and use innovative solutions to help our patients achieve their goals is something that I think is very unique to our communities as well.

I’ve been out to Cloncurry and Julia Creek and up to Normanton and different regions of the Gulf, and I think being able to go to those communities — you do get a sense of what those little towns are like and the type of people and the resources, which can be really helpful for clinical reasoning.

Being able to really get a sense of the broader culture that surrounds Mount Isa and the whole North West is really helpful in terms of how we can care for our patients here and knowing what might be important for them.

Everyone is so used to being away from their family, away from their friends, that it’s such a welcoming social group. Everyone really welcomed me with open arms.

I think that whenever different opportunities came my way — whether that be work-wise opportunities for new positions, socialising, opportunities to go to the races my first weekend here — I think that going in with an open mind and really being open to what could come is definitely something that’s worked well for me out here in a remote area.

It’s not a mundane routine. It’s something that is so much fun, so many opportunities, and every day just kind of feels sometimes like a holiday — which is really nice.

So for me, it’s probably more so the fact that every day can create different opportunities that makes it really nice being out here.

[Text on screen] North West Hospital and Health Service. Queensland Government.

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>> Devashrii ‘Devi’ Dobe, Director of Nursing, Doomadgee:

So one of the great things about remote area nursing is the autonomy that we have as nurses. Nurses in remote areas work to the top of their scope of practice. That’s one of the exciting and stimulating parts of our job, and I think that’s what makes many of us keep coming back for more.

>> Scott Windsor, Director of Nursing, Mornington Island:

In about 2020, I got a qualification called Rural Isolated Practice Registered Nurse. It means I've got extended scope using the Primary Clinical Care Manual to be able to treat patients that present to our ED. It just provides a more efficient service for the patients.

>> Amal Jose, Clinical Nurse:

It’s brought me a lot of knowledge and understanding about nursing, especially the rural and remote lifestyle. This whole thing was very interesting for me, so yeah, I think I’m enjoying it. That’s why I’ve ended up in — like, so far — 3 years in Mornington.

>> Kirsty, Registered Nurse:

I always wanted to do a bit of remote work. I came out here for a couple of weeks and then went back to Brisbane, packed my house up into storage, and came back out permanently. I love it out here.

>> Jomil Artagame, Registered Nurse, Renal Services:

We are based in Mount Isa. Once every 2 months, we come out to work in the communities for 15 days. So it’s a really nice, good mix of both working in the town and in the communities.

>> Nickia Olsen, Community Clinical Nurse:

I’m not a ward nurse anymore. I completely love it over being inside all day. It is a big change, especially if you're from a city. But I’ve always liked small towns. I like it really simple. I go to work, go home. At home, you can go for a walk along the river. You have nice accommodation. You have a normal workplace. It’s just quieter.

>> Theresa Bennett, Workplace Health and Safety Advisor:

I think the experience you get working remote is like no other experience. Unless you try it, you can’t understand it — both the benefits and the challenges. You get to meet amazing people, and you get to make lifelong friends, as well as see new and interesting places.

>> Devashrii ‘Devi’ Dobe:

There’s a lot of love, and people are really, really focused on fabulous outcomes. I think that’s a great place to be.

[Text on screen] North West Hospital and Health Service. Queensland Government.

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