FUTURE doctors who are immersing themselves in the Highlands community as part of their final year of university training say the region offers them “high quality teaching” in “a beautiful environment”.
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Highlands-based students James Garrard, Ronald Murambi and Hannah Jones previously studied medical science before moving into doctor training as post-graduates, while Yolante Eeles earned a communication degree and worked in film and photography.
Taleitha Atkins said she “fell into medicine” after completing a biotechnology degree.
Ms Atkins said the key to working through a medicine degree was learning to change her way of thinking and make studying a way of life rather than cram at the last minute.
“You just progressively learn to be more and more relaxed. You get better at it as you go along because you realise that if you don’t have a life, it’s not really worth it,” she said.
Mr Garrard said the Wingecarribee was a popular choice for people in his year group because the amount of support students received was “exceptional” despite the relatively small size of the hospital compared with some of the state’s larger teaching hospitals.
“Historically there’s been this idea that to learn medicine you have to be in a big, tertiary hospital but I don’t think that’s the case,” he said.
“To be a good junior doctor you have to be really good at the basics and I think this is the best place possible (for that).”
She said almost 70 per cent of this year’s intake of medical students came from rural areas, compared with an average of 25 per cent for other medical schools across Australia.
“The students spend at least 12 months of their four-year degree working in regional, remote or rural locations,” she said.
“These placements incorporate time working in doctors’ surgeries and local hospital emergency departments as well as one day per week of clinical skills and academic teaching.”