The Day I...
Moved to Australia to become a prison doctor
Ever since I was young, I knew I wanted to work in a job helping others. But going by my dad’s experience, a profession in medicine wasn’t on the cards. My dad was a consultant paediatrician. He was good at his job, but he worked hard. He would always come home for dinner, but then go back out on call at night. That wasn’t what I wanted life to be like.
I had barely learned to walk when we moved to Tonga as dad wanted to get a break from the pressures of the NHS. It gave me a taste for a life overseas and doing some kind of humanitarian work.
When I was four, we returned to Dumfries where I grew up and went to school. Soon, it was time to sign up for university. I didn’t know what I wanted to be but I knew I didn’t want to be a doctor. Instead, maybe go into prosthetics.
However, my mum persuaded me it would be best to sign up for a degree in medicine as it would offer a wider choice of direction when it came to specialising, so off to Dundee University I went.
After graduating, I began training as a surgeon, but very quickly changed to anaesthetics.
It was during my studies that I moved to Bristol and met Joe, who eventually became my husband.
Joe dreamed of becoming a pilot. A life-changing motorbike accident as a teenager had left him unable to join the RAF due to disabilities.
But he was determined to fly again. After being made redundant from his sales job, Joe used our savings to train as a flight instructor.
He found a job, but it meant spending half the week away from home and our two children.
After a few years, our sense of adventure kicked in. We realised we both had quite unique skills and could do some humanitarian work overseas.
That led us to discover MAF, the world’s largest humanitarian airline.
Joe got a job as a flight instructor in Papua New Guinea. We got all set to move there, but were asked to stop at Mareeba in Australia on the way to help out. What was meant to be six months turned into a year – and we’ve been here four-and-a-half years now.
It’s a different way of life in rural Australia – completely different from Scotland.
I do miss the square sausage, Scotch pies and haggis, but it’s a very relaxed, community way of life here.
Our kids, Zebedee, eight, and Beau, six, go to play with the neighbours kids on a golf buggy, and the school bus driver drops them at the house if I miss meeting them at the bus stop.
And I love my job, almost as much as the one I left behind.
When we first arrived, I signed up for a junior doctor post at the hospital but on my first day, I was sent to the local prison to work as a GP.
I thought I couldn’t do it…it was so different from the job I had trained for. I went from a job I was expert in, to one that involved going back to the books as it covered everything. I had to swallow my pride and ask a lot of silly questions.
It was a steep learning curve, but after a while, I found a way to use my skills in the new post.
I go up to Cairns one day a week to do anaesthetics, but I also started a chronic pain clinic in the prison, and do pre-op assessments for anaesthetics to save inmates having to leave the prison.
And two years ago, I became involved in running a programme for drug addicts.
Lotus Glen Correctional Centre is a high security prison, so there are inmates convicted or pending trial for serious crimes like murder, rape and drug dealing.
I swap my mobile phone for a panic alarm at the start of my shift, and there’s always a prison guard nearby when I am seeing patients.
But it’s not scary. They are just people who made a mistake on the worst day of their life, most possibly when they were high on drink or drugs.
Being in prison is their punishment so its not for me to judge. In my eyes, they are just patients.
It’s a fascinating job. I’m mainly working with drug addicts, trying to rehabilitate them using medicine and psychology, in a methadone type programme using a different drug.
Basically, I put addicts on drugs for free. I’m Queensland’s biggest supplier!
Its unrealistic to expect anyone to kick a habit overnight.they need a ton of support. For some its all they’ve ever known.
Even if its across a bleached table inside a Queensland cell, these people need to know they are loved and someone cares about them.
That was what I always set out to do and I’m doing it every day.
Perhaps one day we’ll make it as far as Papua New Guinea, but for now we’re settled here – and life is good.
I miss the square sausage, Scotch pies and haggis but life is good