Rural medical students to gain hands-on clinical experience during Goldfields placement

A cohort of medical students will gain hands-on clinical experience this year during a 12-month placement with Rural Clinical School of WA’s Kalgoorlie-Boulder branch. Twelve students will spend their penultimate year of study in the Goldfields with a range of theoretical and hands-on learning experiences, including regular rotations at different hospital departments and local GP practices. Kalgoorlie-Boulder RCSWA academic lead Dr Donald Howarth said the placement program helped medical students build on their theoretical knowledge and participate in hands-on clinical work to “learn the art of medicine”. “You learn medicine a patient at a time, not a page at a time,” he said. “What you can find with your own eyes and fingers and the stethoscope is still the basis of medicine.” Dr Howarth said RSCWA hoped to arrange clinics in remote Goldfields communities to enable students to understand the challenges faced by rural health staff. He said the program aimed to improve the recruitment and retention of medical practitioners in country WA. “The aim is to have them all come back to the country but if they don’t, they may become ambassadors for rural medicine,” he said. “When people have spent time in low-resource settings, they (understand) that doctors don’t have access to all of the gear that they’ve got (in metropolitan areas).” Students from UWA, University of Notre Dame Australia and Curtin University take part in the annual placement program. The new cohort arrived in Kalgoorlie-Boulder late last month. As part of their orientation, the students were given a site tour of Norton Gold Fields’ Paddington gold mine and participated in an on-country women’s trip with Mara Pirni Healing Place. They will be encouraged to participate in local sporting and community groups during their time in the Goldfields. The Kalgoorlie Miner spoke to four third-year UWA students about their experience so far. Ashvin Sharma said the placement would help the cohort learn how medicine was practised in regional and remote settings. “In the city ... I think sometimes the medical team aren’t aware of what kind of access (to medical services) a person has (in regional WA),” he said. “It’s good to know what access is out here so that when you’re treating patients from these areas, you can provide a care plan which is realistic for them.” Meg Read said she hoped the experience would broaden students’ understanding of practising medicine. “Through hands-on experience and actually doing procedures we will hopefully (gain a) more holistic view of medicine and understand Indigenous health to a deeper level,” she said. Andrea Acosta told the Miner the students’ visit to the Ninga Mia Aboriginal community on the outskirts of Kalgoorlie-Boulder was an eye-opening experience. “Seeing that level of poverty in Australia was really shocking, especially so close to where people are making hundreds of millions of dollars (from the mining industry),” she said. “The next day I saw one of the patients from the church getting dialysis and was a bit shocked by that because you never imagine that people are living like that in Australia.” Munaaf Kahn said local health staff and community members had been accommodating to students. “There’s a lot to do in Kalgoorlie in terms getting involved in sports ... and getting to know the locals,” he said. “Everyone has been super friendly, both inside and outside of the hospital.”