World Class Education. Opportunity with Impact.
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Ten years ago the opportunity to complete a Doctor of Medicine in Dubbo wasn’t possible. While students were able to complete a year in a ‘rural location’ they had to return to a major city to finish the rest of their degree.
Fast-forward to 2022 and students looking to complete the four-year Doctor of Medicine (MD) can do it right here in Dubbo with the University of Sydney’s School of Rural Health enabling students to study the same world-class program with the added benefit of living in a regional location.
When Paul Lunney was studying medicine in 2013 he was one of those students given the opportunity to spend one year in a rural location – it was either Dubbo or Orange.
He took the opportunity to “round out his medical experience through seeing some rural medicine versus metropolitan medicine” for a year.
“I absolutely loved it. I fell in love with the place, it was just such a welcoming and warm community, I felt the hospital environment and the university here, the School of Rural Health, were very supportive in terms of being a student but also a new member to the community.
He said that one year changed his whole mindset and all of his future plans.
“I always thought I would return to Sydney and go into some sort of speciality training, but I decided I actually wanted to move to Dubbo and live and work here instead.
“I saw that there was a strong need for health clinicians, health professionals, and I felt compelled to do my part to give back to community. It was a community I wanted to be involved in. I felt a sense of belonging and connectedness that I hadn't felt living anywhere else.”
While Paul was too early to complete his final year in Dubbo he said his time in the region changed all his future plans.
“In 2015 when I completed my medical studies I returned as an intern. Once I completed my internship and residency here at Dubbo Hospital I moved into general practice training in the western NSW region.
“I’ve been here ever since.”
Today Paul works as a Senior Lecturer and the Year three coordinator for Medicine at the University of Sydney, based in Dubbo three days a week, and as General Practitioner for the Royal Flying Doctor Service the other two days.
He said his work teaching comes back to not only his love of learning but also the experience he had as a student in Dubbo.
“Once I completed my training in general practice, I was really keen to return service to the university. I strongly believe that educating medical students in rural or regional settings increases the likelihood of them staying here to work.”
At the same time as Paul started his position with the university, there were also discussions around bringing the beginning-to-end Doctor of Medicine (MD) program to Dubbo.
“Preferentially we are selecting candidates based on their rurality - so those who have grown up here - or those who identify as First Nations people, with the view that we are training our own to look after our own. There is also really good evidence in this space that combining coming from a rural background with medical education in a regional setting you are much more likely to remain within the rural health workforce once graduated.”
Paul’s said he applied for his position with the RFDS because the organisation’s mission is something that resonates with him in that it looks at improving rural health, access and quality of care in remote parts of Australia.
“I really thought that RFDS were all about retrievals and acute medicine and to see them expand and extend into that primary care footprint - that pre-hospital area of keeping people well, promoting healthy lifestyle and choices, screening and monitoring for chronic diseases - that’s why I applied for the job when it came up.
“It’s my passion to help those under-serviced populations with unmet health needs. It’s one of the reasons I wanted to come back to Dubbo because there was a need there where I felt my work would have the most impact.
“By extension that also drew me out of private practice and into that public sphere of improving health access for people experiencing the tyranny of distance and low availability of health services.”
Paul said his advice to anyone considering a move to a regional area would be to ‘do it’.
“Come and visit and see what you think because there is so much to offer here in terms of social connectedness, meaning and value. It’s such an engaging community with growing employment opportunities especially with the increase of work from home or remote working locations.
“Advantages like the relative reduced cost of living, reduced commute times and cost inherent there, allow you to claim back hours in your day or week that you can then use for whatever your interests are.
“There’s such a lot to see and do in the region and you can really make a big difference being somewhere like Dubbo. It’s a nice calm pace of life that can be really purposeful and meaningful.”
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