A RECORD 34 doctors, some who grew up as far away as the Ukraine, Bangladesh and Malaysia, have started GP training in the North East.
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The Bogong Regional Training Network has broken its previous high of 25, recorded last year, with 25 women and nine men in the 2012 intake.
Those involved in the program are attached to clinics in places such as Albury-Wodonga, Beechworth, Benalla, Bright, Cobram, Corowa, Mount Beauty, Myrtleford, Rutherglen, Wangaratta and Yarrawonga.
Among them are Albury-born Angela Stratton and Ukrainian Elvira Sikora, who have been placed with the Mount Beauty Medical Centre.
At 29 and having done a medical degree at Newcastle University and 2� years of obstetric training, Dr Stratton is keen to treat patients in a clinic.
“I’m very excited to work in a community. While I enjoyed working in a hospital I’m looking forward to working in a clinic and having the continuity of care you can have in a community,” Dr Stratton said.
The mother of two had her first taste of consulting on Monday, treating six patients with an array of complaints.
Dr Sikora qualified as a doctor in Ukraine, emigrated in March 2007 and obtained her Australian registration in 2010.
The mother of one has been working in the Wodonga hospital’s emergency department and wants to pursue GP work partly because it is less stressed.
Not that life in an alpine practice is without drama as Russell Richardson, who recently retired from his role as a Bright GP after 18 years, can testify.
“You have to have the capacity to deal with emergencies,” Dr Richardson said.
“You can’t say ‘stick them in an ambulance and send them to the nearest emergency department’, because the emergency department is you.”
Dr Richardson said that in his first week at Bright he had to resuscitate a man who went into cardiac arrest after having chest pains, and treat a farmer left with his hand hanging by a thread after his tractor flipped while he was trying to pull a log out of the Ovens River.
Bogong chief executive Nicki Melville said as of the end of 2009, 32 of 64 doctors who completed the training had decided to stay in the region.