The RDAA Podcast Lounge

Cheryl has served the people of Inverell and region as a Rural Generalist Obstetrician for more than 25 years. With a deep commitment to medical education, she is a Senior Lecturer in General Practice at the University of New England and plays a pivotal role in training and supervising medical students, junior doctors and GP registrars at her practice and the local hospital. This has included bein...

Jean is an absolute dynamo of Rural Medicine, and the phrase she coined – ‘Guilt is not a rural recruitment strategy’ – has taken on a life of its own! Now in her final year of Rural Generalist training with the Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine (ACRRM), she’s already contributed to the work of numerous organisations, including serving for 3 years on the Rural Doctors Association of...

Eiryn is a final year medical student from Griffith University who sought out the opportunity two years ago to relocate to Kingaroy, in rural Queensland, to undertake her training as part of RuralMedEd’s LongLook program. She’s also been working as a nurse at the local hospital. As you’ll hear, she and her fiancé Luke jumped boots and all into local community life from their first week in town…and...

Arron is the first ever permanent Palliative Care Specialist at Taree, in the beautiful Manning Valley region on the NSW Mid North Coast. Raised in outer suburban Melbourne, his passion for Rural Medicine began with a six week medical student placement he undertook 25 years ago – also in Taree! After working for six years as a GP, Arron took a new career path into Palliative Care – a field of Medi...

Raised in rural Victoria, Jessica’s training to be a Rural General Surgeon…and she’s a real dynamo! A strong advocate for increasing access to rural healthcare and expanding rurally-based training, she has led the way in training and working rurally during her own medical career, and in doing so has encouraged numerous junior doctors and medical students to follow suit. She’s also driven the devel...

Jemma is a final year medical student from the University of Melbourne who has worked hard to promote rural medical careers to her peers – particularly the 1400-strong medical student cohort at her university. With a father who worked as a bush nurse, and a childhood spent in numerous rural locations, it was nearly inevitable that Jemma would embark on a career in rural health…but there was a deto...

Of Punjabi-Sikh heritage, Mandeep was raised on her immigrant family’s vineyard in the remote NSW town of Hillston – nearly 700 kilometres from Sydney. After undertaking her initial medical studies in India – her family’s country of origin – she returned to Australia to train as a junior doctor at Wagga Wagga Base Hospital, before moving to Sydney to commence Basic Physician Training at St Vincent...

Kate Hurst is a final year medical student at the University of Notre Dame’s Rural Clinical School in her home town of Wagga Wagga, NSW. A born and bred country girl, she’s been a strong advocate for initiatives to encourage and assist more rural high school students to consider Medicine and other healthcare fields for their future careers - and in her own backyard, the Riverina region, she's...

Dr Gerard Quigley is a quintessential Rural Generalist doctor who has served the small community of Cummins, on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula, for over 30 years – providing crucial local healthcare through both his general practice and the local hospital.  He’s also been a long-term supervisor of GP registrars and taught countless medical students in Cummins…helping to attract the next generati...

Dr Regina Waterhouse – or ‘Dr Reggie’ as she is affectionately known by her patients – has provided medical care on Palm Island for more than 18 months, after completing her obstetrics training in Cairns. A proud Torres Strait Islander woman, Regina was born and raised in Far North Queensland. She initially trained as a teacher, and worked in the community services and disability support sector, b...

Originally from Fiji, Dr Salma Hanif has been providing much-needed medical care to the remote NSW community of Boggabri, with just her and one other colleague providing the town's only medical service in recent years. Along the way, Salma has had to contend with the COVID pandemic...and even a record-breaking mouse plague! While in Boggabri, she's been undertaking advanced GP training w...

From growing up on a macadamia nut farm to studying Medicine, Jas Singh has had a fascinating journey!  As a student on the Extended Rural Cohort at the University of Melbourne Medical School, Jas has undertaken all her medical training in rural areas since the second year of her medical degree. Along the way, she has also undertaken additional placements in East Arnhem Land and Cairns – and recen...

In this podcast, we talk with Dr Diana Cross who received the ACRRM-RDAA Peter Graham ‘Cohuna’ Award for 2021 at the recent Rural Medicine Australia (RMA21) Virtual conference.  Diana has lived and worked as a rural GP Obstetrician at Mt Gambier, in South Australia, for more than 37 years. She received this year’s award for her dedication in providing exemplary care to her community. In this fasci...

In this podcast, we talk with Dr Hamish Steiner who received the RDAA Rural Doctor of the Year Award for 2021 at the recent Rural Medicine Australia (RMA21) Virtual conference. Originally from New Zealand, Hamish has lived and worked as a doctor at Cooma, in the NSW Snowy Mountains region, for nearly 30 years. Last year, he and his colleagues stepped in to save the solo general practice in the rem...

In this podcast, we talk to Indira (Indi) Barrow, who was awarded the RDAA Medical Student of the Year Award for 2021, presented at the Rural Medicine Australia (RMA21) Virtual conference.  Originally from Sydney, Indi is in her third year of post-graduate Medicine at the University of Melbourne. Last year, she completed her first clinical year at Shepparton in regional Victoria (which sparked her...

In this podcast, we talk to Dr James Padley, a Rural Generalist doctor who works with the Royal Flying Doctor Service at Port Augusta in South Australia, and is known for his compassionate mentoring of medical students and junior doctors. Dr Padley was awarded the ACRRM-RDAA Rural Registrar of the Year Award for 2021, presented at the Rural Medicine Australia (RMA21) Virtual conference.