My first few days as a GP Intern

Choosing a pathway in medicine can be difficult, especially with the higher ups constantly pulling you in different directions. Surgeons spruce their financial advantages, physicians barter with ongoing treatment plans and rare diseases while ED consultants quote the rush of variety. In all of this, we are oftentimes told GP is the 9-5 undemanding lifestyle where every patient you see will be a chronic pain management.

Rural GP seems as far from this as you can get. There is a never ending stream of weird and wonderful complaints. We have had, at most, 1 in every 10 cases be management of chronic pain and the GP's of my rural practice will work 12 hour days with frequent on call overnight. It is an intense, exciting lifestyle with strong patient relationships and a noteable connection between the GP's and their community. My first week on rural placement has nurtured an admiration for the skills my supervising doctors have acquired in their 20+ years of rural medicine.

The role of a rural GP is broad, and my supervising doctors handle the task well. The variety of presentations I have treated, as well as the variety of procedures I have been able to perform has been far more involved than any other specialty I have taken part in. The community may have a small population, but everyone has a different background affecting their various diseases in different ways. There is certainly never a dull moment and everyone at the practice is ready to assist one another, much like I presume urban general practice to compare. I look forward to discovering what the next day holds, and feel that compared to my other rotations this year, I am actually enjoying being a doctor for the first time.