As a country kid from a country high school, Dr Libby Garoni stood at the back of the Melbourne University lecture theatre on the first day of class in 1986 knowing no-one and feeling desperately homesick without the mountains.

By the time Dr Libby graduated, she felt comfortable in the urban environment that once seemed so foreign to her and was loving the tertiary hospital structure. Her inclination at graduation was “towards surgery and after a stint at the Royal Childrens Hospital - it was going to be paediatric surgery”.

We’ve heard a lot of stories about why General Practitioners (GPs) jump to rural generalism but Dr Libby’s reasons for taking the leap are in a league of their own – a chicken roll. More specifically, it was an honest moment with an extremely mouldy chicken roll purchased from a food vending machine in the resident's quarters during a 72-hour continuous shift. This unfortunate encounter with the mouldy roll was the last straw, and, in that moment, Dr Libby came to the realisation that “I really wanted to be a rural doctor, in particular, a rural GP”.

This newfound distaste for where surgery had taken her led Dr Libby and her husband Jeff to train in various Northeast Victorian locations such as Wangaratta, Yarrawonga and Wodonga and after an adventurous rotation in the Northern Territory, they returned to join the “really inspiring GPs at Mt Beauty Medical Centre – only a few kilometres from where I was born and grew up in the beautiful Kiewa Valley,” says Dr Libby.

A rural life and rural generalism offered Dr Libby and Jeff the opportunity to have a farm with horses, cattle and any other animals they desired.

Dr Libby reflects that, “it’s a decision I have never regretted – in fact I’d only been the paediatric registrar at Wangaratta Base for three days before I knew I was never going to go back to the city!”.

Throughout Dr Libby’s training she was involved in teaching medical students, interns and nurses while also being mentored by “really great rural doctors who passed on their passion for teaching as part of being a comprehensive GP”. Dr Libby continued to teach students and then registrars when she and Jeff moved to Mt Beauty in 1998.

“It seemed to be a natural extension to become an ACRRM supervisor, and the teaching and supervising was simply part of being the team that a good rural practice really is,” says Dr Libby. 

When asked about her proudest teaching moments, Dr Libby replied, “I don’t often think of what I’m proud of, but I think that one of the funniest moments is recently my teenage daughter had surgery in a major Melbourne private hospital and her anaesthetist looked at me (as the mother sitting quietly beside the bed) and remarked that she recognised me and remembered me teaching her when she was an intern in a country hospital!”

Now, with 22 years of supervising under her belt, Dr Libby believes that what it takes to be a supervisor is to “be a good generalist GP who is comfortable in their practice and can share why they do what they do! And a passion for teaching helps….”. 

We asked Dr Libby if she had any advice for someone considering becoming a supervisor, “I would always encourage them as supervising has been a really fulfilling part of my practice. I think that it makes you a better person as well as a better doctor, and I can recall numerous times in the last 22 years where I have been enriched by my encounters with registrars. It's been a really positive experience”.