Community Resident Testimonial: Dr Nicholas Gray
Dr Nicholas Gray
Placement: Leschenault Medical Centre/Bunbury Regional Hospital
I was involved in the Community Residency Project in its pilot year, 2007, working part time in the Paediatrics Department and the remainder of the time in General Practice in the Bunbury region. I chose this term as I was particularly interested in General Practice (I am now a GP Registrar in the Northern Territory) but also wanted to keep my skills in hospital based medicine, in case I found GP was not to my liking.
The program gave me essentially one on one exposure to Consultants from two specialties – General Practice and Paediatrics. Each position was essentially equivalent to a Registrar post as I had direct, regular access to a consultant supervisor. With no other training doctors in the clinical setting, I consistently managed patients in a Registrar role where appropriate. I feel significantly more confident in both fields than I expect I would have been if I remained in the tertiary hospital system for those six months. I consistently recommend this program to my peers, regardless if their career aspirations are as a GP or a hospital based specialist.
The end result of being in the program was that it confirmed both my desire to work in General Practice and piqued my interest in Paediatrics. I completed the required Paediatrics component of my GP training and gained a greater interest in Paediatric medicine – an interest that remains today and continues to model my continuing professional development outside the structure of the AGPT program.
