“The reason I wanted to apply for medicine through the Extended Rural Cohort option was to continue to live and engage in regional and rural communities. As I was born and raised in Warrnambool and went to boarding school in Ballarat, I have always enjoyed being part of a community and I was keen to explore other regional and rural sites across Victoria.

The biggest benefits I received being rural in my clinical years was the clinical experience I received along with the support and patience shown by the teams I was a part of. As generally there are less people on a given team in regional and rural hospitals, it meant there was more opportunity for myself to get involved on the team. As a student I was able to help write notes, perform procedures and review patients, all of which has helped me feel more confident heading into an internship. Due to the smaller size of the hospitals I found that there was greater opportunity to meet and connect with senior doctors who acted as great mentors and helped to guide my journey in medicine beyond university.

Monash Rural Health was great at supporting students and making adjustment to the different towns as comfortable as possible. I also felt through the Extended Rural Cohort I was able to spend a lot of time at certain sites, which enabled me to build strong relationships with the staff and helped me feel comfortable whilst on placement. The community itself also supports you, the more you invest into the community of the town the more you will get out of it. I invested a lot of time playing and getting involved in football clubs and the people involved helped me settle into the community. Through this involvement I met nurses, doctors and allied health workers at the footy club which in-turn provided more support whilst on placement.

I am completing my intern year at Bendigo Health and aim to continue my medical career in the rural and regional workforce. I hope to continue to stay involved and play a role in the community I reside in throughout my career and I see this can be best done in rural and regional areas. The Extended Rural Cohort also helped me gain a better understanding of the issues facing rural health and provided further motivation to want to help contribute to the rural medical workforce.”

Learn more about the Bachelor of Medical Science and Doctor of Medicine

Learn more about the End-to-End Rural Cohort