General Practice Registrar of the Year

As the RACGP’s 2017 General Practice Registrar of the Year, Dr Boylan has embraced all that comes with entering primary healthcare.

‘I think the diversity is so enjoyable and makes for such interesting days, but it can also be terrifying and a bit overwhelming at times,’ she said. ‘It’s proven to be challenging, but I love it.’

That diversity extends beyond the consulting room for Dr Boylan, who divides her time between a number of different areas of healthcare. A typical week includes time at a private family general practice, in aged care, and engaging in teaching and content development at Adelaide University.

‘That’s the nice thing about being a GP – having your finger in lots of different, interesting pies. It keeps your mind open in doing different things, while also being there enough to contribute properly,’ she said.

Having trained and worked as a lawyer prior to entering medicine, Dr Boylan has found such a background can come in handy in her new vocation.

‘I think my law training has been a good background in communication aspects of my job, having a little bit of an idea about risk management and probably being less fearful of the legal system,’ she said. ‘Sadly, in medicine now people are terrified of the medico-legal consequences of their decisions.

‘Hopefully that will change over my professional lifetime.’

While she has only been in general practice for a few years, Dr Boylan has already experienced some of the best the profession has to offer.

‘I’ve just come back to working at a practice that I haven’t worked at since 2014. It’s been particularly lovely to see a lady who has had lots of problems with fertility, who has had two babies in the interim,’ she said. ‘And also some adolescents and people in their early 20s who were struggling with some mental health problems, who have come through the other side of that and seem to be doing a lot better.

‘That’s really nice, to come back and observe them after having not seen them for a few years and feel like maybe you were slightly involved in helping them overcome that problem.’
 

GP17