TROHPIQ TREE Scholarship: Rural Elective Experience
Nicole Oberfoell, November 2013
After the bustle of the end of first year medicine, I couldn’t have looked more
forward to my rural elective getaway. Goondiwindi, a country town of
approximately 5,600 people alongside on the river border between Queensland
and New South Wales, is where I spent my elective. The name is appropriately
derived from the Aboriginal word meaning “the resting place of the birds.” Apart
from being an important town along the highway network to Brisbane,
Goondiwindi has many cotton farms, cattle farms, and piggeries.
My accommodation couldn’t have been more convenient. I stayed in a room of a
small, fully furnished house across the street from the hospital and a sub-tenminute walk from the medical centre. When off-duty, it was easy to stroll the
town, bike along the path connecting the river to the botanical gardens, swim in
the river across the helipad from my house, or test my luck by tossing a fishing
line in from the riverbank.
The first two weeks of elective were spent in the Medical Centre where I was
able to shadow a variety of different Rural/General Practitioners. It was very
enlightening to see the different physician styles and be exposed to such a
variety of cases. Through this I had the opportunity to experience full
consultations and conduct a number of physical exams (e.g. abdominal,
neurological, cardiovascular, baby checks) on patients with direct guidance from
the physician.
The second two weeks I was based in the hospital’s Emergency Department. The
day would begin on hospital ward rounds, and I was encouraged to spend as
much time introducing myself to and following up on clinically interesting
patients. It was here I performed stroke assessments to feel for differences in
muscle tone, and listened to the unusual heart sounds of a patient with Marfan’s.
In the Emergency Department I collected patient histories, performed relevant
physical examinations, and reported my findings to the doctor. We would
anticipate a patient plan, and I would then shadow how he went about and
completed the case.
Throughout the month I had plentiful opportunities to gain more exposure.
Different physicians gave weekly focused teaching sessions. There were skin
clinics, podiatry clinics, nursing home visits, community Indigenous health clinic
visits, and other opportunities to shadow the ultrasonographer, optometrist,
visiting dermatologist, and visiting podiatrist.
Overall, this was a wonderful experience to reinforce skills and knowledge
covered in university, and better understand the practice of rural medicine in
Australia. It was a way to realize what capacities a rural clinic can excel at, and
where the lines are drawn when a referral becomes necessary.
I am greatly appreciative to Dr. Matt Masel who made this experience possible,
and the Goondiwindi medical team for providing me numerous opportunities to
get experience and learn.