To say the life of the Senior Medical Officer is busy is an understatement. But Dr Rosie, as she is affectionately known to locals, is in her element.
“I always knew I wanted to go back to the bush and Cunnamulla is a great community,” she says. “There hasn’t been a doctor that has lived here for 10-20 years – they have all been fly-in and fly-out locums – so people were very excited to see me.”
The town is a relatively short drive from Rosie’s childhood home, a property one-and-a-half hours’ west of Bourke, where she was schooled through the School of the Air. “I lived more remotely then than I do now,” she says. “And when I left school I went jillarooing in the Kimberley.”
It was while she was later studying Law and Indigenous Health at Sydney University that Rosie was lured to UNE. “Many of the friends I had made in the Territory had gone to UNE and I wasn’t enjoying living in Sydney. Someone suggested I study Medicine instead. It was a little random, and something of a struggle because I hadn’t studied science at high school, but I never looked back.”
At UNE, Rosie (a Robb College resident) met Sam (an Albies resident studying Agricultural Economics) and during the years that followed they hatched a plan to “buy a property and live in the bush”. They moved to the station just outside Cunnamulla three-and-a-half years ago, after time in Dubbo and Darwin. Lydia was just five weeks old.
“There are heaps of young people living here, there’s always lots going on and people have been so inclusive,” Dr Rosie says of the town, population 1,800. “I work for Queensland Health at the Cunnamulla Aboriginal Corporation for Health and about 40% of our patients are Indigenous. I am on-call for the hospital and see patients at the clinic, but I am often going back and forth from the hospital if someone is in the Emergency Department. Locums fly in and out for a week or two weeks at a time but often I am the only doctor within a 200-kilometre radius.”
That means being prepared for anything, including long hours.
“I start each morning at the hospital, where I may or may not have been overnight for emergencies or traumas,” Dr Rosie says. “There is a large proportion of chronic disease in the community – the kind of diabetics and heart disease issues common to Indigenous populations. Most weeks we would use the Royal Flying Doctor Service to fly someone out, but there are times due to weather or pilot hours or plane availability that they can’t get to you, so sometimes you are on your own.
“It can be terrifying, don’t get me wrong. There is no way you can be prepared for everything; it is incredibly busy and the learning never stops.”
Dr Rosie believes her rural upbringing gives her a distinct advantage.
“Growing up in the bush, you develop a lot of resilience, a strong work ethic, and learn the importance of getting the job done and trying not to panic in stressful situations,” she says. “UNE also fostered that and allowed me to develop those skills in a supportive environment. The project-based approach involved a lot of independent learning that prepares you well for the real world, and living and working remotely was always supported at UNE.”
These days, Rosie and Sam rely on a nanny and teamwork to juggle the demands of their young family, off-farm work and considerable farm responsibilities.
“When I am home from work, I could be drafting or moving sheep or cattle, getting the kids bathed and fed, cooking for other people and often returning to the hospital,” Rosie says.
“I am currently working part-time and that might look like four days a week or seven days a week or a 10-hour or 14-hour day, depending on what’s happening. Although it’s super stressful at times and the on-call work can be hard with the kids, it’s undoubtedly what I imagined myself doing and it’s extremely rewarding to be able to provide an essential service to people who may not otherwise have had access to it. That’s really important to me.”
Current UNE Medicine student Jared Lawrence, who recently did a rural placement with Dr Rosie, describes her as “an inspiration”.
“She’s a gift to Cunnamulla,” he says. “In providing a permanent doctor presence, she gives Cunnamulla the continuity the community needs to improve its health outcomes.”
