doctors in rural communities

[davidc4430]

Patients in Mount Isa go to emergency room or use home-remedies as regional GP shortage worsens

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-01/gp-shortage-in-regional-towns-getting-worse/11905918

as i live in a pretty rural area and i vist the doctor a lot i notice 1 thing

seeing an australian born doctor is darn hard!

when i first came to live in wallyworld i must have seen 5 or 6 non aussie born doctors who for the most part i couldnt inderstand what they were saying!

they may have been great doctors but if the patient cant get what they are telling him or her it just not ok

i now have a lovely guy taking care of me, understands me and i can understand him, hes australian.

he has no plans to move from the area which makes my life much better.

he sees himself as a rural GP and loves it.

i have no issue with bringing in doctors from other countries but its being over done, lets get back to training our own and bringing in foreign doctors to help them learn then go home.

i hate the whole 'you get what you get' when you want a doctor.

my brother visited the emergency room at the wallaroo hospital about a week ago, all the nures and the doctor were non australians.

when i was there with him i didnt see any australian doctors or nurses.

they did a fine job as far as i was concerned but, why no australians?

[myoclon1cjerk]

I've had dealings with Pakistani, Indian and an African doctor in the recent past. All were good and all spoke fluent English.

[lyhargr_0]

---

@davidc4430 wrote:

Patients in Mount Isa go to emergency room or use home-remedies as regional GP shortage worsens

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-01/gp-shortage-in-regional-towns-getting-worse/11905918

as i live in a pretty rural area and i vist the doctor a lot i notice 1 thing

seeing an australian born doctor is darn hard!

when i first came to live in wallyworld i must have seen 5 or 6 non aussie born doctors who for the most part i couldnt inderstand what they were saying!

they may have been great doctors but if the patient cant get what they are telling him or her it just not ok

i now have a lovely guy taking care of me, understands me and i can understand him, hes australian.

he has no plans to move from the area which makes my life much better.

he sees himself as a rural GP and loves it.

i have no issue with bringing in doctors from other countries but its being over done, lets get back to training our own and bringing in foreign doctors to help them learn then go home.

i hate the whole 'you get what you get' when you want a doctor.

my brother visited the emergency room at the wallaroo hospital about a week ago, all the nures and the doctor were non australians.

when i was there with him i didnt see any australian doctors or nurses.

they did a fine job as far as i was concerned but, why no australians?

---

On the whole  Aussie doctors wont come to the bush,  they tend to stick to the larger cities

[the4masters2013]

I live in a regional area, where we have Aussie doctors and non-Aussies. All spoke fluent English but the accents took some getting used to.
When I lived in Sydney, I very rarely saw an Aussie doctor as I was living in a melting pot of cultures which I loved. All doctors where non-Aussies spoke fluent English and with an Aussie drawl!!

[eol-products]

My guess is people from cities learn to be doctors and with family and friends in these areas do not want to move to rural areas. There would need to an incentive of some sort. Police will get sent where they are needed, doctors can go where they want.

[springyzone]

I'm in a suburb of Melbourne and a lot of doctors and nurses around here are non Australian. Some are great, some aren't, same as in any job situation.

I find the quality of service varies and some of it has to do with the various places they work at.

In the bulk billing places, they can be extremely ordinary, verging on incompetent at times. I'm not sure it has to do with race as some are good, some are very bad. I think it has to do with training and experience. It's obvious to me that some of the training overseas isn't up to our standards and they may do a cross over course when they arrive here but they still aren't up to scratch.

I assume that in the private practice clinics maybe the wages on offer are higher and they have a wider range of applicants to choose from.

What i find annoying is I've seen comments that we have 'too many doctors' but I think what is happening is they are restricting the ones (in Australia) who qualify to get into medical courses. They have to have scores around 99.8% or some such thing.

Personally, I think we should have many more Australian students (of whatever racial background) admitted to courses. I would say that anyone with a score of 95% could end up as competent as a 99% scorer. I suspect they restrict numbers mainly because they want to protect their income streams.

It wouldn't be that hard to build in incentives for medical students to spend a year in rural centres or towns after graduation.

[lyhargr_0]

---

@springyzone wrote:

I'm in a suburb of Melbourne and a lot of doctors and nurses around here are non Australian. Some are great, some aren't, same as in any job situation.

I find the quality of service varies and some of it has to do with the various places they work at.

In the bulk billing places, they can be extremely ordinary, verging on incompetent at times. I'm not sure it has to do with race as some are good, some are very bad. I think it has to do with training and experience. It's obvious to me that some of the training overseas isn't up to our standards and they may do a cross over course when they arrive here but they still aren't up to scratch.

I assume that in the private practice clinics maybe the wages on offer are higher and they have a wider range of applicants to choose from.

What i find annoying is I've seen comments that we have 'too many doctors' but I think what is happening is they are restricting the ones (in Australia) who qualify to get into medical courses. They have to have scores around 99.8% or some such thing.

Personally, I think we should have many more Australian students (of whatever racial background) admitted to courses. I would say that anyone with a score of 95% could end up as competent as a 99% scorer. I suspect they restrict numbers mainly because they want to protect their income streams.

It wouldn't be that hard to build in incentives for medical students to spend a year in rural centres or towns after graduation.

That happens now, we get quite a few who as part of their training, come for a yr or so and off they go, they just wont stay in a small country town   .....  The cpl of doctors we do have, need to split their time between 2 practices  30km apart. There have been days when we have had no medical service cause there is no doctor avail that day.  When that happens, the only alternative is to drive to the hospital 30km away, not that easy, if you arent feeling all that great.


It doesnt seem to matter whether doctors are Au/Overseas born or trained, no matter what incentives are offered, they just WONT  come to the bush, 

---

[myoclon1cjerk]

Let's face it, you can't get a decent latte in the country.

[myoclon1cjerk]

Or curry 🙂

[davidc4430]

id like a decent chinese take-away

maybe if we had a detention centre?