Firsthand farm experience for GPs in training

An isolated Dubbo farm was taken over by GPs in training last week as the group honed their emergency medicine skills through a range of hands-on simulations.
 
From poisonings to electrocutions, quad bike rollovers, snake bites, limb injuries from farm tools, and gunshot wounds, the workshop was designed to walk the doctors through each practical scenario. 
 
The collaboration between the RACGP and the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) offered the GPs in training a taste of the hazards rural patients face each day and how best to treat them.
 
RACGP Medical Educator Dr Sonja Kauffman told newsGP that many of the participants began the day feeling nervous or apprehensive, but by the end of the session, ‘they loved it’.
 
‘Coming out to work in rural areas can be quite daunting, but after a day like today, they realise they have the skills there, they just need to learn how to respond to the situations appropriately,’ she said.
 
‘Everyone loves it by the end of the day and they’re usually very enthusiastic about working in some more remote areas.
 
‘A lot of the doctors here are from city regions but they’ve come out to do some rural time, and it’s so important for them to get that confidence.’
 
The scenarios were specially designed to replicate those a local GPs would be called on to handle until the RFDS arrives to help.
 
With each of the 24 GPs in training who took part coming from a different background, some had never stepped foot on a farm before.


Each of the 24 GPs in training who took part come from a different background, with some having never stepped foot on a farm before.  

RACGP Regional Director of Training for Western NSW&ACT Associate Professor Kerrie Stewart told newsGP the day was crucial for GPs in training to better understand different communities and relate to their patients.
 
‘It’s incredibly important both clinically, but also professionally and personally, because we have a number of registrars who have never been on a farm,’ she said.
 
‘We have registrars who come from the city, we have registrars who are either international medical graduates, or come out to rural but are from urban areas.
 
‘For them to actually come onto a farm, to see a farm, to understand, it gives them such an appreciation and such heightened ability to really identify and be able to relate to their patients.’
 
The event comes as Australia continues to battle through a maldistribution of doctors, with many smaller towns struggling with access to a GP. 
 
Associate Professor Stewart said one aim of the day was for GPs in training to face the ‘scariest situations’ and then to be safely walked through them, potentially opening the door for a later career practicing rurally.
 
‘It is a risk that we run in general practice, that we distance ourselves from that emergency care, but we are frequently either first responders or providing pre-hospital care,’ she said.
 
‘For registrars to be able to get that firsthand experience and get back to those roots and think, “I do have these emergency skills”, is really important.
 
‘We know our registrars will use these skills now in the region, so we’re getting an immediate benefit, but we also know that if we sow those seeds then hopefully, we’ll see them blossom later in their GP careers.’
 
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