Gippsland born and bred, it made sense for me to navigate my medical career in my local region. I think there are lots of opportunities in Gippsland for me as a GP and rural generalist.

I undertook my medical training at Monash University, spending a lot of my clinical years staying close to home. I was a Gippsland intern; I’m now working at Warragul Hospital (West Gippsland Healthcare Group) in emergency and I’ve already completed rotations in paediatrics and anaesthetics.

I have enjoyed a lot of things about going rural - the broad scope of practice when you go rural is great, working with consultants has been interesting and challenging, and the work environments are good places to practice and learn.

There are a lot of opportunities in Gippsland for both hospital and general practice based work. I encourage doctors to consider training in a rural setting as there are quite a lot of opportunities in a rural setting. I think Gippsland is excellent, you can work in a large town or more rurally like Heyfield. Really it’s just up to you to pick a place where you want to go.

For me benefits are:

• Opportunities to get hands on skills
• Opportunities to do procedural work
• Excellent supervision
• Great learning
• Ability to start practicing independently

Personally, I like to follow the procedural model hence my choosing ACRRM as my fellowship pathway. I also chose ACRRM because they are entirely dedicated to rural and remote medicine. I wanted to ensure that I had a solid foundation in acute, hospital-based medicine which ACRRM requires its registrars to undertake. This will enable me to work anywhere in Australia and that’s a massive bonus for me. I am looking forward to gaining the skills and knowledge to better serve my community.

I have received great support and had a great network of mentors during my training. The workshops and information sessions helped me and my fellow registrars navigate the college requirements and encourage us to maximise our learning opportunities in hospital and clinic.