Doctors bring ‘city skills’ to region
ONE of the major challenges facing regional health facilities has always been attracting skilled professionals who are able to provide specialist services.
But Tablelands residents can rejoice with two of Atherton Hospital’s doctors bucking that trend to continue bringing “city skills” to a regional town.
Atherton Hospital’s doctors Angela Barrie and Marika Goodman have both recently completed their training as rural generalists, with touching reasons motivating their choices to upskill.
Dr Goodman is a proud Far Northerner who grew up in a health family. The sad passing of her younger brother when she was just nine inspired her to a career in health.
After graduating from James Cook University, Townsville in 2013, she joined the Atherton Hospital last year and her recent training has provided her with skills in anaesthetics and paediatrics.
“It means we can provide procedures in smaller communities like Atherton without having a specialist in anaesthetics here,” Dr Goodman says.
“For the Atherton community it means they can have a birthing service here where they might need a caesarean section or epidurals. It means they don’t have to go to Cairns to get colonoscopies, or simple surgery. It just means people can stay where they live and not travel down the range.”
The doctor, who is expecting her first child in October, says the most enjoyable aspect of her job was helping vulnerable people and seeing them recover.
Also a JCU graduate, Dr Barrie – initially from Mackay – began her medical career in Central Queensland at Biloela, west of Rockhampton, about eight years ago.
She made the move to the Far North in April, chasing more challenging work to keep her on her toes.
“I wanted to see more birthing numbers than there were in Biloela just to keep myself confident with my skills,” she says.
“And just the variety – so the hospital here has a good mix of medical, surgical … we do obstetrics as well so enough to keep us doing the rural generalist work.”
She says one of the common misconceptions the public had about health workers was that they remained emotionally unaffected by challenging health outcomes.
“We do switch off to feeling and emotions because we have to. But it doesn’t mean it doesn’t affect us either.
“People just perceive that we turn around, go have lunch and that’s it. But that stuff does sit with us.”