New Queensland Chair striving for positive impact

When Dr Cath Hester was a child, she loved watching her TV hero Dr Elliot from long-running Australian drama series A Country Practice with her dad.
 
Speaking to newsGP, the newly appointed Chair of RACGP Queensland believes this was ‘an early clue’ to generating a curiosity for medicine.
 
‘I have always been interested in medicine, and in particular general practice,’ Dr Hester said.
 
‘Despite having the aptitude, my parents never had the opportunity to be educated beyond age 12, so wanted to give their kids a different journey.
 
‘Although I don’t think they envisioned watching a soap opera to be an instrumental part of this!’
 
Raised by parents who were both ‘very strong’ supporters of education for their children, including herself and four older brothers, Dr Hester grew up in Mount Crosby in semi-rural Queensland. After embarking on studies in engineering, she then went on to complete her postgraduate medical degree at the University of Queensland.
 
Fast forward some years later, and she is the principal GP at Ipswich practice, Colleges Crossing Family Practice, which she set up with her GP husband Dr Tony Bayliss.
 
Demonstrating many years of dedication to general practice and caring for her local community, Dr Hester has adopted her new role on the college Board with a clear vision for her two-year tenure.
 
‘General practice is important to me as I see it as the best way to ensure health equity,’ she said.
‘There is no other health profession that has such a positive impact on the wellbeing of our communities.
 
‘Over the last decade my leadership and advocacy roles have grown as I keep trying to support the profession.
 
‘I hope I can make some positive difference in my role as Queensland Chair: supporting our hard-working GP colleagues and keeping our profession strong is the best way to keep our communities well.’ 
 
But Dr Hester wasn’t always sold on general practice.
 
As a junior doctor working in the hospital system, she admits she “didn’t get” general practice to begin with.
 
‘I liked the teamwork of surgery, and wondered if I should pursue this. [Then] in a bit of a snap decision, and to get a different perspective, I decided to work for six months in [rural Queensland town] Cloncurry,’ she recalls.
 
‘It was an adventure and I loved it.
 
‘Getting to know my patients and their families, having some agency over how I practised, and of course, the ability to work wherever I wanted was just so appealing.
 
‘I came back to Ipswich and completed my general practice training and have worked in the area since.’ 
 
In addition to her role as Queensland Chair, Dr Hester sits on the Board of the West Moreton Hospital and Health Service and was a longstanding member of the RACGP Expert Committee – Funding and Health System Reform until she recently stepped down to concentrate on her Board role. 
 
So, what are the advocacy priorities for her sunshine state?
 
‘One big challenge is how to reduce the interface issues between primary and secondary care whilst centring the GP at the heart of care coordination,’ she said.
 
‘We need strong, consistent, evidence-based advocacy for our members on this front, especially to drive the digital infrastructure and funding reforms that we need to enable this.’
 
Dr Cath Hester officially assumed the role of RACGP Queensland Chair, replacing Dr Bruce Willett, following the RACGP’s 66th Annual General Meeting on 23 November.
 
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