Cowra doctor recognised for dedication to medicine and community

More than 30 years of dedicated service as a GP Obstetrician to the community of Cowra in central-west NSW - as well as to teaching and training the next generation of rural doctors - has seen Dr Louise Baker receive the prestigious ACRRM-RDAA Peter Graham ‘Cohuna’ Award for 2018.

The Peter Graham ‘Cohuna’ Award is the highest honour that can be bestowed by the rural doctor community, and is awarded jointly by the Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine (ACRRM) and the Rural Doctors Association of Australia (RDAA) in recognition of service of the highest order over many decades.

The award was established several years ago in honour of the late Dr Peter Graham, who served the community of Cohuna on the Murray River in Victoria for 48 years.

It was presented on Friday evening at the gala dinner of the joint annual conference of ACRRM and RDAA, Rural Medicine Australia 2018 (RMA18), currently being held in Darwin.

Raised in the rural NSW town of Cooma (where her father worked as the local postmaster) and then Mittagong in the NSW Southern Highlands, Louise moved to Cowra after meeting her future husband, Steven, a farmer. They have five adult children.

She was initially inspired to consider Rural Medicine as a career while baby-sitting as a school student for a local Cooma doctor, and relaying messages to him when the hospital required his attendance to help with imminent births. She also had an older sister who worked as a nurse.

A sixth month term in the Family Medicine Program at Cowra in 1989 quickly turned into a long-standing medical career at Cowra as a GP Obstetrician, interspersed with work as a locum GP and setting up and then holding various roles (including Executive Director) with the Central West Division of General Practice.

ACRRM President, Dr Ewen McPhee, said: "Louise is a truly inspirational rural doctor, who has provided enormous service to the Cowra community and to Rural Medicine as a whole over many years.

"She has provided cradle to grave care across generations of Cowra families, including significant and ongoing medical service to the Aboriginal community of Cowra, with whom she remains close after delivering many of the community’s babies. Her sons also attended a preschool run by the local Aboriginal community when they were young and she was fighting breast cancer.

"Louise has also been at the forefront of training and mentoring countless medical students on placement from the ANU Medical School at her group practice. In doing so, she has helped put Cowra on the map in terms of it being a great location to work as a rural doctor.

"She has also been a tireless advocate for ACRRM. She has served as ACRRM's National Medical Advisor, and has also been a GP Supervisor for ACRRM for many years.

"We warmly congratulate Louise on receiving this highly deserved award."

RDAA President, Dr Adam Coltzau, said: "Louise has made an enormous contribution in the push to boost the future rural doctor workforce in NSW and for the continuation of GP procedural training in NSW.

“She has served on the Management Committee of RDANSW for 8 years, has served on numerous other committees, and is a wonderful role model for young doctors and countless medical students.

“In addition to her ANU medical students, she has taken GP Registrars into her practice for many years, and has mentored several second year medical students who were recipients of The Land Rural Medical Scholarship.

"In 2016, her dedication in supervising GP Registrars was recognised when she received the ‘Supervisor of the Year Award’ at the Western NSW Regional Awards by GP Synergy.

“Louise has been extremely active in working to boost training places for future Rural Generalist doctors in NSW, and is a Member of the NSW Rural Generalist Training Pathway Council.

“The Peter Graham ‘Cohuna’ Award is a highly respected award, and Louise is an incredibly deserving recipient of it.”

Dr Baker said: “I feel very humbled in receiving this Award as I truly believe there are other rural doctors who deserve it much more than me.

“I always thought I'd either be a GP or an obstetrician, so working as a GP Obstetrician has been the ideal mix. I love working with kids and elderly people and I love Aboriginal health – and working as a Rural Generalist doctor has enabled me to do all these things and more.

“We pride ourselves in Cowra on providing good support to medical students and GP Registrars. Certainly the ANU students that we have here, and in other rural communities, get so much more one-on-one teaching with senior doctors and so much more one-on-one time with patients, that after their year finishes and they go back to the city they invariably ring up and tell us that they are missing their time here!

“Cowra has an ageing population with a range of complex and chronic diseases. We also have a young population with a range of psychological concerns, more drug and alcohol problems, and more people coming into the ED with self-harm concerns.

“One of the things I have been involved with is a pilot program for integrative care in NSW, which brings together the local health system, local schools, the justice system, community support services and the Police Citizens Youth Club to enable young people to get the support they need. These are small steps but they are making some positive outcomes.

“There have been some very funny moments in my years here. When I had three children, and one of my colleagues found out I was having twins, he said ‘I know we have a doctor shortage here Louise, but you don’t need to breed the local medical workforce!’ Funnily enough, one son has become a physiotherapist, one is studying physio, and my daughter is now a rural doctor on the NSW South Coast.

“When our children were young, getting the work-life balance right was critical, and I couldn't have done all this without my husband Steven. He was willing to drop everything and go and pick the kids up from school if they were sick, or cook dinner or help around the house - his support was amazing.

“We had a very rough few years in 2000 and 2001 when Steven had a motorbike accident and sustained a head injury, and shortly after that I was diagnosed with breast cancer. The support we received was nothing short of fantastic - our extended family and the wider community stepped up and looked after us in so many ways.

“It reminded me why I wouldn’t swap my career as a rural doctor, and living in a community like Cowra, for quids.”