The doctors going back to secondary school

Dr Natalie Barton was not sure what she was in for when she signed up to the ‘Doctors in secondary schools’ scheme in Victoria last year.
 
The outer-east Melbourne GP admits to feeling nervous when she began taking part in the State Government-funded initiative to improve access to primary care in secondary school areas considered most in need.
 
‘I wasn’t quite sure what to expect,’ Dr Barton told newsGP.
 
‘I like young people and I like working with young people, so I thought I’ll give it a go.
 
‘In terms of my own professional skills, I was a little apprehensive that maybe I wasn’t going to be able do a great job.’
 
Dr Barton discovered the scheme while working at headspace, and eventually took up the position at Croydon Community School through the Eastern Melbourne Primary Health Network, working one day every week to help give students improved access in primary care.
 
Working alongside a practice nurse, Dr Barton says she initially was not even convinced many students would show up to the clinic.
 
She need not have worried.
 
‘It was pretty busy straightaway,’ she recalled.
 
‘And I think for us, we were lucky in that the school and the wellbeing team already had a very good relationship with the students there, so the students already trusted them.
 
‘And so they were then able to transfer that over to us, I guess.’
Immediately, Dr Barton got the sense that children were receiving care they might otherwise have found it trickier to receive.
 
‘It is really satisfying, because for a lot of these young people, it gives them a place to start. I suppose it’s a safe space to access care,’ she said.
 
‘I feel for a lot of the kids that we see, that perhaps outside of school it’s more difficult for them to do that.’
 
As for the concerns about her professional skills? Again, Dr Barton says she need not have worried. She found the job rewarding from the start with a supportive wellbeing team, and says there are other opportunities available for GPs to take part if they are looking for them.
 
‘It’s professionally great, because you feel like you can make a difference to quite vulnerable young people,’ she said.
 
‘And the support through the program to the ongoing CME [continuing medical education] – there’s a lot of options to upskill if you want to, particularly around mental health and sexual health.’
 
Unsurprisingly, Dr Barton says mental health presentations are the most prevalent at the school clinic, but she has also provided care on an array of issues, from sexual and reproductive health to musculoskeletal conditions.
 
The service is free for students, with the State Government funding GPs and nurses. Dr Barton says the arrangement has allowed her to take part without needing to sacrifice income from her regular clinical work.
 
Part of the satisfaction she gets is from the more educative part of the job – aptly perhaps, given the setting.
 
‘It’s allowed us to help some young people who were quite vulnerable, who didn’t have great access to health services, or weren’t quite sure how to start accessing health services,’ Dr Barton said.
 
‘It’s allowed us to develop relationships with them and to help them then navigate the health system more broadly, which has been really good.
 
‘And there’s a lot of scope for introducing preventive health stuff, too, which is also really nice.’
 
Crucially, though, how has she found the patients?
 
Dr Barton says they have expanded her vocabulary, and she has nothing but good things to say about the role.
 
‘It is really satisfying to get to know them and be able to help them get some things sorted out,’ she said.
 
‘They’re also really lovely, great to work with. They’re fun and they’re resilient and I enjoy their company.
 
‘It’s actually been vastly better than I expected.’
 
The school where Dr Barton works is one of around 100 secondary schools in the state currently taking part in the scheme, which is run across the Primary Health Networks.
 
Eastern Melbourne PHN has a limited amount of vacancies for the Doctors in secondary schools scheme – see the EMPHN website for details.
 
More information on the scheme is also available through the Victorian Government website.
 
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adolescent health mental health Primary Health Networks secondary schools Victoria