During my rural prac I was confronted by many new experiences and challenges, however I think the biggest eye opener for me was the minimal resources provided to cover such a large area and the skills required to cope with this.

The health service where I was placed is based at a regional centre and is responsible for providing health care to the local town, between the hospital and the community health centre, as well as five other towns, two within driving distance and three within flying distance. Given the distance between the towns and even centres within the town, readily available transport is essential for these services to be delivered.

The major problem faced by the allied health team was that the allocation of government cars was poorly organised and a bit biased towards visiting medical staff. There were numerous instances of missed treatment sessions or even whole days at a community due to therapists not being able to find a car. Similarly the contract to provide flight to rural centres was shared with mining companies and so mining staff took priority over allied health staff, which resulted in staff being stranded in towns overnight as they were unable to get a flight home.

The large distances, lack of staff and transport problems mean that rural staff have to be extremely flexible and continually change their plan to ensure the best care is given to the patients. With treatments sometimes spread so far apart and little follow up available, I was made aware of the need to focus on the main priority for the patient and try to treat that the best we could with the time available.

The skills I witnessed on this prac including coping with problems, flexibility to change at a moments notice and above all else the ability to keep a sense of humour meant that I left my rural prac with a great deal a respect for rural clinicians and the challenges they face each day just to get to treat patients.