After growing up in the South and studying medicine at the University of Tasmania, Doctor Shevonne Koh graduated in 2018 and moved up North to continue her training.

After three years working at the LGH, Dr Koh, an Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine trainee, moved to the town of Scottsdale to undertake a year of community medicine.

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Less than halfway through her 12-month contract at the Ochre Medical Centre in Scottsdale, Dr Koh said the experience had highlighted the difference between acute and general practice.

"In terms of resources, we have to be really mindful of what we can and can't do.

"For example, CT scans and those sorts of things, that's not an option here, so your diagnostic reasoning and your clinical skills, you have to really rely on those a lot more. "It's really good. It's very challenging in terms of the pathology and the chronic disease."

Dr Koh said health issues in the country were also impacted by social issues less common in the big city.

"People here, in terms of health literacy, it's a lot lower and usually education overall," she said. "Their health is a lot poorer, and so people are usually very complex patients, as opposed to say in Launceston."

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Beyond the social and complex health issues, Dr Koh said she had experienced a wide range of patients that underpinned the broad range of skills modern rural GPs required.

"You are still seeing a lot of your emergency presentations and obviously with Derby not far away and this being the nearest hospital we see lots of mountain bike stuff as well," she said.

"Over the summer as well there are lots of motorbike accidents, people have come off their motorbikes on many occasions. "We do a lot, actually, and it's a very broad scope of practice."

"That's the whole thing with rural generalism, you might have one area of an advance skill, but you're a generalist in the sense that you know a little bit about everything because you have to because you don't know what's going to walk in the door."

The experience had reinforced the need for more doctors in remote areas, with Dr Koh saying good GPs needed to want to live and work in rural communities.

"People are always looking for permanent GPs here, that's what the town is crying out for, people who are willing to immerse themselves in the culture," she said.

"There's a definite need for all GPs out here and I think it's a great sort of thing to buy into."

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