After swearing he’d never study medicine, Jack found himself falling in love with it. And for his final year of Med, it’s even taken him rural. | Reading Time: 3 minutes.
Think a rural placement means being isolated from your friends back in Perth? For fourth-year Med student Jack, a Rural Clinical School (RCS) placement in Kalgoorlie has filled his final year with fast friendships and weekend rodeos.
Living rurally brings a different pace to city life, and one that Jack says he’s been waiting to get back to. Growing up in mining towns across Australia, Jack jumped at the chance to head out to Kalgoorlie for a rural placement with RCS. What attracted him to the opportunity was simple: a chance to explore the Goldfields and connect with a group of friends doing similar activities with similar schedules for an entire year.
Medicine wasn’t always the goal for Jack; in fact, he graduated high school thinking, anything but! But after testing out different careers during a gap year, Jack found himself falling in love with the hospital lifestyle and patient care.
Deciding on his career path with intention strengthened Jack’s drive to push through the intense coursework of medicine. But the easiest way Jack’s stayed motivated? Knowing that he’s not studying for just himself, but for the patients he’ll see in the future.
“One day, you might get caught out in the middle of nowhere on a random placement and a patient walks in with the one-in-a-million condition. If you have a rough idea of where to look for the resources for it, it’ll make a difference in someone’s life.”
Jack’s days during placement are normally split between ward work at Kalgoorlie Regional Hospital and teaching sessions at the RCS, where the learning environment feels much more informal than in Perth.
“We’ll be sitting on a couch or beanbags together and if you throw a joke at the tutor, he’ll throw them right back. It means you can ask any question you want, relevant or not, to really round out that knowledge base.”
What has made his rural placement really stand out is access to meaningful clinical experience. Compared to a metro placement where Jack’s friends are one of two students in a team of 37 on the ward, the staff teams in Kalgoorlie are small enough to make real connections with consultants and patients alike.
“Here, I’m one of two students on a team of six. You’ll be walking around the ward, and a clinician will pull you over on a name basis. ‘Jack, come on over, how’s your weekend, come see this patient and I’ll teach you about a condition.’”
And since Kalgoorlie is such a small town, it’s not uncommon to walk around town and bump into consultants or go to events with the entire Emergency Department nursing team as mates.
“When you rock up back to work on Monday, it’s more professional,” Jack says. “But everyone’s definitely a mate first and a work colleague second.”
Are you a Health Sciences student planning your final year placement? Jack’s final piece of advice for you is to go rural – no hesitations.
“I’ve done so many things this year that I couldn’t even dream of. If you want hands-on experience, personalised learning, or to know more senior clinicians who can help you out with medical and non-medical things, go rural!”
