Medicine can be a rewarding career, but the path isn't always easy. With COVID-19 thrusting health professionals into the spotlight like never before, there is a renewed focus on ensuring Tasmania has well trained doctors - particularly in rural and regional areas.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
To become a vocationally registered GP, doctors need to complete specialist training and receive practice supervision for three years.
In Tasmania, this is carried out by General Practice Training Tasmania - the only training organisation dedicated to GPs in the state. At any one time there are about 120 registrar GPs being trained by GPTT in Tasmania - with about 75 per cent choosing to state in the state.
As part of The Examiner's Critical Condition series examining what the future of health services in Northern Tasmania looks like, we caught up with some of Launceston's newest GPs, who all happened to take up the profession later in life.
First up, it's Dr Brendan Thomas - a former plumber who was 32 when he applied to study medicine, and 52 when he started working as a general practitioner.
Pathway to medicine
As a teenager, Dr Thomas left school before finishing year 10. Thrust into an apprenticeship, it didn't take him long to question how he wanted to spend the rest of his life. But without an education behind him, his options were limited - so he decided to change that.
"For me, it was a step process," he said. "I thought, I will get an education first, so I taught myself year 10 maths at home. Then I did year 11 maths and chemistry at night school while I was working, then year 12 at night school, all while I continued working."
In Victoria at the time, Dr Thomas considered a range of career options before settling on medicine - including engineering and environmental science. But knowing he wanted to make a difference to people's lives was what led him to ultimately choose medicine.
"When I got my marks back, I realised I could do whatever I wanted - so I thought I would give medicine a go," he said. "It was the opportunity to apply scientific knowledge to problem solving, but in a way ... where I am actually dealing with people and making a real difference.
"I wanted a job that would be meaningful to me. I thought medicine would provide that opportunity, with that one-on-one basis to make a difference in people's lives."
Dr Thomas said it was also the opportunity for a work-life balance which drew him to general practice.
"You actually get a lot of flexibility in hours, and you don't have to be working 78 hour weeks," he said. "So it's a good variety and it's also good logistically."
He said he was also drawn to working in a regional city like Launceston.
"Everyone seems to know everybody here, which is nice," he said. "I don't think of Launceston as a small country town by any means, but it has that feel to it. That everyone is familiar to everyone else - which is kind of nice."
Why work in Tasmania?
According to the Productivity Commission's Report on Government Services 2020, there has been a 10 per cent increase in the number of GPs in Tasmania since 2014 - from 95.9 FTE GPs per 100,000 Tasmanians in 2014 to 105.4 in 2020. However, Tasmania remains below the national average, with ongoing challenges when it comes to retention and recruitment.
For Dr Thomas, the decision to pursue his career in Tasmania was influenced by a combination of both personal and professional opportunities.
After graduating from Monash University in 2000, he dabbled in a range of areas - including emergency medicine, anaesthetics and ophthalmology - before settling on general practice. After a year in Melbourne, he and his family were ready for a sea change - and he said Tasmania fit the bill.
"My wife's family is from here [Tasmania]. We had been living in Melbourne or about 20 years, but we thought it was time for a sea change," he said.
IN OTHER NEWS:
"And there were obvious advantages - we could get rid of our mortgage moving here ... we had family here. It just all fell into place."
After starting his general practice training in Melbourne, he is now completing it here at the Launceston Health Hub.
While admitting most of his patients probably weren't aware of his past experience as a plumber, Dr Thomas said one of the biggest misconceptions people had about GPs was that they have an answer for everything.
However, he said that didn't mean they didn't have an important role to play.
"People often come to us for a solution, but unfortunately in medicine, so often we don't have the answer. You have to be comfortable with uncertainty, which is probably the hardest thing for people to get their head around," he said.
"But as a GP you feel like you are part of a much bigger machine. You can't exist in isolation in general practice, because you spend so much of your time referring people.
"But we have great support here in Launceston, clinicians are always happy to take your call. But as GPs, it's a sorting house for a lot of patients. We are definitely part of a much bigger picture."
Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content:
- Bookmark www.examiner.com.au
- Make sure you are signed up for our breaking and regular headlines newsletters
- Follow us on Twitter: @examineronline
- Follow us on Instagram: @examineronline
- Follow us on Google News: The Examiner