It Takes Heart
It Takes Heart is an unmissable podcast where healthcare workers share their honest and unique experiences from Australia’s frontline.
Discover real-life stories of passion and purpose, insight and inspiration from people on the inside and tales that are equal parts heart-warming, heart-wrenching and hilarious. It Takes Heart is co-hosted by cmr | Cornerstone Medical Recruitment CEO Samantha Miklos and Head of Talent and Employer Branding Kate Coomber.
It Takes Heart
Swapping City Life for Red Dust: Dr. Sonia Henry’s Remote Healthcare Story
Dr Sonia Henry's book "Put Your Feet in the Dirt, Girl," lit a flame for the creation of this podcast. The desire to get to know more about this woman's life was top on our list. And that we did!
We sit down with this physiotherapist turned rural GP to discuss how the COVID-19 pandemic redirected her life path from the hustle and bustle of city life for more meaning and connection in remote healthcare.
She was astounded by the breathtaking yet under-served regions of the Kimberleys and Northern New South Wales. Through her stories, Sonia reveals the stark disparities in healthcare access and systemic issues plaguing remote Indigenous communities.
We discuss the meaningful patient interactions that make GP work so unique, her passion for writing, and the balancing act of becoming a published author while practicing medicine full-time.
The episode wraps up with a deep dive into doctor wellbeing, particularly in rural settings. Sonia discusses the sense of community and connectedness often found in remote areas, in contrast to the isolation of urban environments.
Her heartfelt anecdotes shed light on the critical need for systemic changes to support healthcare professionals better.
This episode of It Takes Heart has CEO of cmr Sam Miklos hosting alongside Head of Talent and Employer Branding, Kate Coomber.
We Care; Music by Waveney Yasso
More about Sonia's Charity of Choice:
MBA NSW (Medical Benevolent Association of NSW)
The Medical Benevolent Association of NSW-ACT (MBA NSW-ACT) is a registered ACNC charity run by Doctors for Doctors and their families. We provide counselling, case management referral and short-term financial assistance through times of crisis, illness, accident, mental health conditions, grief and loss of income to help doctors in NSW and ACT to recover and return to well-being and independence. We also run preventative workshops and peer support programs as well as actively advocating to improve the systems and workplaces that doctors work in. Visit https://www.mbansw.org.au for more information.
Get to know cmr better!
Follow @ittakesheartpodcast on Instagram, @cmr | Cornerstone Medical Recruitment on Linked In, @cornerstonemedrec on TikTok and @CornerstoneMedicalRecruitment on Facebook.
We care for the land and sea.
Waveney Yasso (Acknowledgement to Country):We care for the energy. We care for our community.
Sam Miklos:We care, welcome to. It Takes Heart. I'm Sam Miklos and I'm Kate Coomba. We hope you enjoy these incredible stories of healthcare professionals making a difference in communities across Australia and beyond. Through our conversations, we look to celebrate the spirit of community and care. We acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land who have long practised and shared ancient methods of healing, providing care and support for their communities with wisdom passed down through generations.
Kate Coomber:Join us as we explore what it truly means to take heart.
Sam Miklos:Yes, today. Sonia Henry is a physio turned rural GP and now the author of two books. Sonia is incredibly passionate about improving healthcare outcomes, particularly for remote Australia and First Nations people. She's also a huge advocate for doctors' wellbeing. Her most recent book, put your Feet in the Dirt Girl, inspired me to create this very podcast. Sonia's honesty, humanity and care for others shone through the pages and we so connected with her desire for health equity across Australia. Welcome Sonia to the it Takes Heart podcast.
Sonia Henry:Thanks, I really appreciate being on here.
Sam Miklos:I've got to tell you you genuinely are like the inspiration. Kate and I had been talking about getting this podcast started and we were sort of like what's it about? What's it about? And these elderly neighbours that walk past my house every morning, after like years of living in the neighbourhood, stopped me and said what do you for work? And I said I have a medical recruitment business. And they said have you ever read this book? Put your feet in the dirt, girl. And I said no, I've not. They said have you heard of Sonia Henry? And I was like no, no, I don't know.
Sam Miklos:And the next day they walked back past the house with your book but they had it in this ziploc bag as if it was their most precious book. They owned to read this, you will love it. And I was like okay, and honestly, like I couldn't stop reading it. And I said to Kate I was like this is what we were trying to get at. It's the stories, like reading the chapters of the places that you went to. They're the stories that we hear from our candidates all the time and it's like that's what it is. It's just hearing the stories and and getting people's um awareness up around, like these incredible communities that no one would imagine is there, and and so many of our professionals you know, here in sydney and brisbane and melbourne. I just don't know.
Kate Coomber:So thank you for that and then it's been shared around because I think just the um, the knowledge that can be gained from all of your stories for our recruitment team and being able to talk to candidates really well about the locations and what to expect, I think is so valuable Definitely.
Sonia Henry:No, thanks, it's a cool story actually.
Kate Coomber:I like the fact that it was the elderly neighbours too.
Sonia Henry:Yeah, they just loved it Really cool. No thanks, yeah, they just loved it Really cool. No thanks, yeah, that's great.
Kate Coomber:That's great to hear and I know in your book you talked about wanting to go to Europe and you're joining us from Europe today. I guess is this the big trip you wanted to do in COVID and then didn't.
Sam Miklos:I jumped in the Pilbara and said it's similar Portugal. Yeah, yeah, similar Portugal, right yeah?
Sonia Henry:yeah, I mean, well, technically, western Australia and Western Europe, the coast of Western Portugal, actually are quite similar. I had some photos for the book taken, which was sort of amusing it looked like I'm in Western Australia, but actually I was on the Atlantic coast of Portugal, because the sun sets on the same side here. I think that's sort of funny. No well, I have been to Europe since the book came out. But yeah, it's good to be, it's great to be back. I mean, I'm quite a nomadic person at heart. I suppose I've always really enjoyed travelling. Europe is, you know, it's a beautiful continent and there's so many places to see. So it was, you know, the whole thing as it worked out that I then became very passionate about remote Australia. It's not something that I would have predicted for myself, but that's the beauty of life, isn't it?
Sam Miklos:You never know where you're going to end up and what does you know when you're not travelling? How do you divide your time? Because I guess at the end of the book I can't remember where you were, right at the very end, and then like, are you back in Sydney? Do you do your contract back-to-back?
Sonia Henry:Well, I've actually continued to work remotely since the book was finished. I mean it was actually kind of funny, like my book was launched I did all this national media, which I was quite surprised by actually the amount of interest in the book, but you know, it was really great. But then I went straight to like Broken Hill and then over to Western Australia for three months and worked in like the Kimberley and through the Coral Coast and yeah, so nothing really changed in terms of where I was working or what I was doing, and then we had this trip planned. So, yeah, I still work. I guess I have the kind of my favourite spots that I go back to now. Where are they?
Sonia Henry:I really like the Kimberley part of Western Australia I mean I think everyone does. The scenery is really spectacular and it also parts of North Western New South Wales you know I'm familiar with and whilst the landscape isn't quite as startling as the Kimberley, you know there's great communities out there and it's not so hard to get to. I suppose Like a flight to Dubbo and a two-hour drive is not quite like crossing the entire country from Sydney and there's lots of different options. I mean, I got a text from a friend the other day who wants to now go and work. You know relaying. I hope I've had some part in inspiring that. But yeah, I think you can work pretty much anywhere. But now I've sort of lost that need for new adventures. I suppose I've sort of got to return to the same place.
Sam Miklos:And when you're in Sydney.
Sonia Henry:Are you practising as well? Well, I have a virtual job, which is very convenient. It also ties in a bit to the remote stuff because it covers a lot of the stuff we do is covering nurse run small hospitals in rural victoria who otherwise wouldn't be able to see a doctor, um, so I guess I haven't really let go. Yeah, I can do that from anywhere. So I do that part-time and then I work when I plan to work in between, probably three to six months of the year in remote hours.
Sam Miklos:Fantastic. So you started out as a physio and then went on to become a doctor. What was it that attracted you to healthcare in the first place? And then I guess why the transition from physiotherapy to medicine?
Sonia Henry:So there's a few times I was like like, oh, my mom wanted me to be a doctor I'm like well, I'm amazing a lot of people feel that way.
Sonia Henry:But no, I was also, to be honest, I was also very interested in people like I liked the human aspect of medicine. I was never that sciencey at school or anything like that like I mean, I did well at science and but I sort of my passions were much more in the humanities, like English history. You know I've always been like that, but I like the human side of it. I like the diagnostic process as well. It's quite satisfying, um, but ultimately patients are all people, just like doctors are all people. So without recognizing patients as human and understanding the human story, I guess you can't.
Sonia Henry:It's hard to enjoy medicine without that and I think, if you like that, you know lots of doctors have been created like me and I think we all enjoy that side of it. And you know I met a lot of great people in training and that sort of thing. So yeah, I guess that's how it all began. Physio wise, I was very interested in sport when I was growing up, like that was pretty sporty and I wanted to be a football, but a physio sorry, it's early here I wanted to be a physio for like a sport team and all that stuff, and I did that for a while but it wasn't as uh, glamorous as as what, what I had envisaged.
Sonia Henry:And then actually, when I started medicine, I ended up deferring for a year because I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do and I was going to go to Europe and I had a job lined up with an opportunity to be English ballet company. I mean, this is many years ago now. Yeah, yeah, it was cool. Actually it was through a girl I knew, through football, ironically, that I was doing with the different Sydney and I broke my arm like three days before I left to try and ski the test to get onto the ski patrol. I didn't thread broke because I'm a keen skier and I obviously couldn't work because I had a broken arm.
Sonia Henry:So the uni sort of rang me when I was in Europe and we're like well, what's your plan? Are you going to come back? Are you going to stay in Europe? And I I was going to sort of say, look, I'm done, I think I'll just keep it up. But I then randomly went back to the ski resort in Switzerland and met a Spanish doctor who had gone there for a mountain rescue course and she her name is Sarah, I still remember and she's told me all this cool stuff you could do with medicine and all the places you could see, and she's like I think you should go back and that's sort of what decided um how I would return and then it all happened like that I love when you can have such key people in your life that really do change the direction of what yeah, I've never forgotten her.
Sonia Henry:Isn't that funny. You know that you met this random Spanish woman, but she was so nice and so, um, lateral lack of ego, and and you had a very interesting life and um, and then I thought I could have a life like that and I sort of have. Yeah, I was just gonna say, yeah, she's been my beacon all this time, but yeah, that's sort of how it happened.
Kate Coomber:I love the um, the human element of what you're talking about. I think we've had some guests on on the series who really talk about the human interaction with their patients are really the the most memorable moments for them throughout their career, not necessarily always the clinical decision they made or something like that. It's really having those, those human interactions that really, I guess, drives the purpose and passion oh, definitely, yeah, definitely.
Sonia Henry:I mean I don't think there's many jobs where you do have as much human interaction, particularly being gp, because I mean I'm seeing the patient awake most of the time you, um, you are able to interact with them on a more normal level, as in they're not lying on quadras in a bed and you're having to interact with them on a more normal level, as in they're not lying unconscious in a bed and you're having to do something really dramatic or whatever. You sort of are able to talk with them about their life, and I think that that real window is most unique to general practice.
Sam Miklos:Absolutely.
Kate Coomber:And I guess, how did being an author come about?
Sonia Henry:I always wanted to write books. Yeah, yeah, that's what I wanted to do my whole life, really. I mean, that's what I imagined for myself. You know, I wanted to be a writer, but like my parents said, you know, writers starve, doctors don't starve but um sometimes writers don't starve at all, but not quite there yet in terms of being able to just write full-time.
Sonia Henry:The dream, uh, no, um, and I always liked words and I really liked books, and I saw a book that I suppose a bit of another world to escape into. Um, and it was another thing, I guess another window into a different place.
Sonia Henry:Um, and then I, it's very hard to become a published author, so that took many years to finally get a publishing contract, but uh, then it did, and you know I've had two books published, none of which have been easy. I mean, it's a tough road writing book and working full-time but um, you know you'd have to be crazy to do it, as someone said.
Sam Miklos:But then people are crazy, so they do it. A third in the mix, so we expect yeah, well, I'm trying.
Sonia Henry:You've got to go into like medical crime fiction, but I've only written 10 000 words because I've been kind of just too busy enjoying europe, so but that's definitely my, I've got to get back to it so, um, for those who have not read your book that are hearing this today, can you tell us how you went from working as a GP in Sydney to then exploring remote medicine?
Sam Miklos:How did that come about?
Sonia Henry:Yeah, so I was meant to be. I'd finished my exams and everything, like you know. I finally got my fellowship and everything was, you know, pretty good, and then I had decided to go to Dublin. I had a job lined up in Ireland and then the international borders shut because of COVID, literally like three days after, I had sort of sort of a little bit stuck out. I mean it had been a work in progress, yeah. And then, you know, I was sort of sort of a little bit stuck out. I mean it had been a work in progress, yeah, yeah, um.
Sonia Henry:And then I, you know, I sort of also, at this point in my life, I just wanted to really get away, um, for lots of different reasons, and then I was really stuck and it was a terrible feeling to be so stuck because you sort of I mean everyone felt like that during COVID.
Sonia Henry:But it's such a strange situation, I think, for all of us, but particularly I felt very sorry for people who, you know, for whatever reason, want to get away and want to do something different. You know, there's always this moment you're like we're like this has happened, all that's happened, and I want to go overseas, or I want to go here and you suddenly just can't, and but anyway. So luckily, being a GP, I did have the capacity to work. So I looked at pretty much like jobs, remote Australia. I rang a few agencies and then a job. I saw a job that said he was a solo doctor in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. Um yeah, I was like, oh yeah, that looks pretty far away and then I googled it and it looked like really far away.
Sonia Henry:And then it kind of feels like a few days later I was on a plane landing in Perth, which was bizarre in itself, Obviously flying in the time of COVID is really.
Sam Miklos:And then the next thing it's like Perth, like it's. Oh yeah, and flying in the.
Kate Coomber:It was like lots of different countries, right it was. Yeah, it was really weird State to state it was like we were being run. Yeah.
Sonia Henry:Yeah, it was very. It was all you know talking. You know you really hear about the borders in terms of Australia right, we don't really have more land, we're a giant island. Right, we don't have borders per se, but it all felt very kind of World War II. I remember this talk about borders and land and the separation between this state and that state. It was really strange. So that was weird in itself. And then getting obviously into the middle of the Western Australian games, it was even weirder. But you know, it was amazing really.
Sam Miklos:Did you feel, you know, coming from practising in Sydney to then the Pilbara, you know, in those first few weeks of work there did you feel clinically equipped? You know, it's sometimes the things that you're faced with and it's such a different role, in some ways, to be the solo doctor.
Sonia Henry:Well, I mean, that's a good question, like I suppose I didn't feel, I felt like my skill set was was solid, but I felt that it was the access to imaging and the access to specialist care. And then also the realization of this sort of mythical, uh idea of there'll be air support. You know, they kept saying there'll be air support. So you kind of imagine or conceptualize that there's this sort of fleet of planes arriving if there's a major problem and the patient can be sort of whisked off. But the reality is it's not really like that. I mean, you know, the, the air support, in whichever place you're in whether that's like care flight or rfgs or you know there's a few options is that they're quite understaffed and they don't have enough planes and then they're very busy. So you know, the air support isn't probably going to get there as quickly as what you hoped, it's not going to run at all.
Sonia Henry:So that was a real, that was a shock. So there was sort of like this low level oh, it's very hard to see a specialist or a patient having to wait, and unless they can get to Perth. But then you had your more acute scenarios where you sort of realized that you could do your best, but I mean, without the right equipment and the right sort of things, that if they were to go wrong, that would be very difficult. Um, and it was, you know, like a few sort of hairy things happened and I sort of got out of there before anything really catastrophic happened, but six weeks after I left, something did, you know? And yeah, like there's no sugarcoating, that aspect of it.
Sam Miklos:How did you find, you know, going from Sydney, the razzle and dazzle of Sydney, to some of those remote locations that you worked? Did you find that a shock in yourself? You know some of those towns, like the one, iga, or like the accommodation, even amenities, yeah, I mean sometimes there's not a big club, like that's what it's really like. I guess the things you maybe like they still had the rose, but it was renamed, I think the pink line.
Sonia Henry:You, lion, you know, yeah, the Pink Lion, I still call it that actually sometimes. Yeah, I think it was. Look, I'm pretty flexible and I understood that I wasn't going to, you know, the Sheraton, like it was. Yes, not the Four Seasons, but I found the landscape very beautiful, you know, and I'm not a particularly precious person. So some places were better than others in terms of accommodation and that kind of thing. And you know, you knew you were going into the outback, so you didn't really expect there to be like a cold. Yeah, I had that idea. But then some places I went to after that, well, the remoteness I mean even the Pilbara is extraordinarily remote, like you have no concept of the space and the distances until you're there. I think there's a line in my book where I said you haven't seen land until you've seen some of the stations in WA, and that is, I think, still true.
Kate Coomber:Like I've seen land in New South Wales. Those drive out there with your phone nearly going flat and you know those things are preparing people flat and you know those things into that concept.
Sonia Henry:You know I was all a bit slapdash. Yeah, I should have looking back. I should have. That's because a few of our reviews in my book I don't normally read reviews, it's actually reviews have been very positive.
Sonia Henry:But you're kind of nasty, like I can't believe she went out there so unprepared. But I'm like you got no idea. Like being a doctor you're always unprepared. Like I mean, these people seem to think we have this kind of like hr setup where there's like these inductions. I'm like let's just try and be a junior doctor, sweetheart. Like I feel like running back to us like the whole thing's just a bit all over the place. But yeah, I mean, was I realized how remote it was, but yeah, the isolation of the, the red earth and the filbert just stretching for miles, but it's also spectacular. So you kind of are in this sort of terrible fear like oh no, I'm really going nowhere to also this real appreciation for this incredible old place that you're in, um, but yeah, obviously I mean when I worked through the territory and stuff as well, that that was my most. I think I've never seen such conditions like that in a first world country, you know, in australia. That really shocked me.
Kate Coomber:Yeah, I'd love it yeah, sure, I think that some of our audience may not really even understand. I think there's the location of being remote and the landscapes around you, but then the people and the communities that are there and the differences I guess of then being sent to. You know hundreds of kilometres west of Alice Springs or you know very, very remote where you're in these communities, like the access to healthcare.
Kate Coomber:The access and the type of care and working in Indigenous health specifically. Can you maybe share some real differences that you've seen and what is it like?
Sonia Henry:I mean because I worked in the Pilbara, which was a mining kind of. I mean there were lots of actually First Nations or Indigenous patients there, but it wasn't because it was a mining. There was a bit more money, it was a bit less well, it was still very remote but it didn't feel as neglected, I guess. And then I went to work across back over to the east and I worked in northwest New South Wales in a. It was a town but it had been what was called a community. So it only been the last two decades and you transition from being an Aboriginal community to a functional town. For people who don't know, when they use this term community, it's almost like a euphemism to some extent. Some communities are very nice and the people have, you know, quite good quality of life, but across the board they're kind of remnants of missions or reserves when the First Nations people were taken away and put into these setups and they've sort of I guess it's persisted since that time.
Sonia Henry:So the whole origins of that were pretty bad to begin with, right yeah, um but yeah, but then this town that I lived in, it was the health outcomes that really shocked me. Um, it was the, the diabetes and the. I mean, my first patient there was like a 26 year old who had a blood sugar of 32. Um, and you know there's a lot of ignorance still around aboriginal health in australia, where people do say this really annoys me. I mean, not only is it driven by racial intent, I think a lot of the time it's also incredibly ignorant. When people look at aboriginal people, you know it's the alcohol or the diet, these tropes who it's? It's their fault or it's your fault, you know? Um, but I mean, the thing is that, simply, physiologically, at 26, even if your diets are cooling which I'm not saying necessarily this patient was your body regulates and you, you can process and you don't end up with raging hormone and diabetes.
Sonia Henry:Yeah, um, and sure you did, as I saw lots of young people because of this. You know, sort of previous position to that which was what happens when you're forcibly removed from your land and then, over generations, are essentially force-fed the wrong foods and then you get to this correct point where but it wasn't just like, it wasn't just like these textbook statistics, like I still remember calling my dad one night and like the, even the blood results were different. You know this sort of pro-inflammatory response in grey's white. They'll raise inflammatory markers that there was no real explanation for. Like I had a friend actually who had like really low ferritin but incredibly high hemoglobin, which is sort of I can't remember quite the details, but it was physiologically almost like impossible to the point where the specialist at rpa got involved and it was like you kind of see this stuff in sometimes in nepal, like in high altitude climates, and I was like, are you related to it in nepalese?
Sonia Henry:just like I think so, dog, like I mean it was. People don't understand medical issues that are facing ab people in Australia. And then couple that with being in the middle of absolutely nowhere with other stuff, like there was no bus to get to the nearest major place, which is 450 kilometers away. Um, there's no ambulance service out there in terms of New South Wales ambulance service, that spot. So you can't just call an ambulance if someone is, you have to argue with some air support somewhere and a computer to come and get the patient. Like the whole thing was yeah. So I rang dad and I was like I can't believe that there's people here who are suffering like this. You know it was. I was in tears, it was really shocking, and I had to speak to a dermatologist about other syphilis, a lot of syphilis because of skin changes, secondary dyslexia, which is also pretty rare to see, and he said he's seen leprosy out there. Wow, and it's certainly in the territory, which is unbelievable. So that was very difficult to get my head around.
Sam Miklos:And from what you've seen, you know, what do you think can be done to bridge that gap? Like it's such a big gap that I think, like you're unaware of?
Sonia Henry:Yeah, I think it's probably acknowledgement of the fact that there is this gap and there's lots of things inside the gap. We found out that the gap is this empty chasm, but actually it's full of history and denial and lots of different things. You know, we've got a lot of money in Australia, particularly like the mining companies and all our minerals, that sort of thing. Like actually we could have better health services if we really made a brave decision. Yeah, but we don't. You know there's a lot of. It's so complicated and it's so difficult. But if you speak to Aboriginal people, it's not really that complicated. They're sort of like you know, we just want more doctors out here, we want better hospitals, we want cheaper food yeah, stuff like that. There's shops out there that food prices are really jacked up so you can't really just go to Coles and buy all your veggies because you're dealing with costs. It's like this forgotten part of Australia. You know, quite startling to realise that that existed within my own country.
Sam Miklos:You know, when you've gone into any of the new communities. How do you build trust? You know, how do you when they say, hey, I'm coming in, and if they haven't had a doctor for a while, or they've had, you know turnover of doctors, yeah, how?
Sonia Henry:do you get that trust?
Sonia Henry:I mean, I haven't really struggled so much with that just because, like I think I'm a pretty kind of average person, in the sense that I don't really think I'm better than the patients, or like I've always had a good ability to kind of merge with the place that I'm in and with the people.
Sonia Henry:And I think patients are smart, like they're instinctive, they kind of pick up on whether you're going to be like you know, I'm the doctor in the ivory tower and you're my patient, because, realistically, you're in a place that is so different to where you've come from. They're going to teach you more about it than what you're probably going to teach them. And also, I think I was so relieved to have someone there who actually listened to them. Yeah, you know, and I was interested in them and I was interested in their stories and their conditions and how to help them. So, yeah, sometimes you can come into towns and people can be a bit reserved, but that didn't take long for me for that to change and I found it very easy to make friends. And that's what I liked about this kind of place is that everyone was actually very welcoming at the end.
Sam Miklos:Yeah, I was going to ask you that Did you find you made networks, you know, moving around from a couple of weeks here, a couple of weeks there?
Sonia Henry:Yeah, yeah, definitely, I'm still friends with them today. So, yeah, like it wasn't. I don't think that for me, in terms of socialising, people say, oh, you get lonely, so some places are a bit different to others, but places like the Kimberley through WA, and yeah, I mean, I've got friends all over Australia now, so I think that sometimes it's more fun than being in Sydney a lot of the time.
Kate Coomber:Yeah, we've got people who say that, that sometimes when they're in the cities people are isolated. Now and sometimes when they go out more rural, remote there's such a connected community out there sometimes and people are making maybe more of an effort to get to know people and they're feeling more connected than than when they're in their city oh, absolutely like.
Sonia Henry:I think that I mean particularly if you wanted a bit of a change as the gp or, you know, dr goodman, from emergency or gp, pretty much all ones you can do it so easily. But if you wanted a bit of a change as a GP or a doctor who would move around maybe emergency or GP, pretty much all the ones you can do it so easily. But if you were so like I really need a change. I'm sort of at this point where my life's stagnating a bit, for whatever reason. I think working remotely is such a great thing to do. I mean not only for the fact you're actually helping people, but it's good for your own medicine and your own personal growth, I guess.
Kate Coomber:It sounds like you're probably testing your skill set when you're in some of these locations at times. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, do you think? Sometimes, when you're in these locations, when you're not supported with all of the resources, your skill set is expanding constantly?
Sonia Henry:Yeah, it is, and look, that part of it is not. I've never been a hero or a cowboy doctor who's like got off on the remoteness and how hard it is, and I mean, all I saw was how unfair it was that these patients couldn't access this stuff that everyone could access in cities, um, and that's quite scary. But look, the help is there if you ask for it it's. Look, it's not. I agree, it's not like you can just have someone run down and help you from there, but actually you'd be surprised.
Sonia Henry:It's a and you can pick and choose where you go, like you know places, like on an hour at the hospital with lots of doctors, I had lots of colleagues where I worked and it was very collegial and you know you, actually there was education and that sort of thing. So you can, kind of you can work your way up to some of the more remote locations and also, simply because you're a geek, there's lots of choice. You don't have to go somewhere if you think it's going to be too hard and too dangerous, and that would be. My advice, of course, is to always sort of figure out, maybe ask some more pointed questions, which perhaps I should have done.
Kate Coomber:I think you're clearly very adaptable and I think not everybody is adaptable and flexible.
Sonia Henry:No, no yeah.
Kate Coomber:For anyone listening who thinks that maybe this could be a good option for them. I'd really be thinking about where they're comfortable, what do they need surrounding them, and then for someone to maybe map them to the right location and health service time in their career, and you know, they can evolve and go from there. But there might be a bit of a stepping stone to that.
Sonia Henry:Yeah, and if you're going for an agency, you need to have some really frank discussions, maybe speak to previous doctors multiple previous doctors who've been there, and also because it's totally different sitting in an office sending people places to actually being on the ground there working there. Oh yeah, I don't want people to think, oh, everything in remote Australia is so great and so wonderful. I mean, that's like a fictionalised version of the story. It's not like that, but there are, like I said, there's lots of different options.
Sam Miklos:Sonia, what about you know the wellbeing piece, for you know you're so passionate about wellbeing for doctors. Can you talk to us about what wellbeing looks like? What is it in wellbeing that you think we really need to be more aware of?
Sonia Henry:I think, look, doctor wellbeing has been a bit of a problem for years. I mean, I don't really think it's any better. I wrote an article in 2017, anonymously, called there's Something Rotten Inside the Medical Profession, which is a response to a Spanish doctor dying by suicide very young doctors and there was lots of responses to that and everyone went crazy and you know, the health minister sent me some response to my open letter and I didn't know it was me, obviously. I just read it on the train. It was like, you know, we're all really this is really bad, but I'm on a medical council called New South Wales Medical Benevolent Association, which is a council that exists for doctors in distress yeah, totally confidential and stuff, and you know anyone can ring up, but the amount of calls we're getting is only increasing. Wow, there's been lots of recent suicides of doctors in the last 12 months. That we sort of. Yeah, I think hospital training programs are still very difficult.
Sonia Henry:Being a GP is also tough. You know like the media loves to jump on the backs of Gps all the time and which all of these things create, these vortexes of um, stress and difficulty. Um, and you know there needs to be lots of changes when it comes to looking after the well-being of doctors, but they haven't quite got there yet. There are some good initiatives. I think we need, you know, to open up the training positions I I think austral Australia also needs to change its attitude towards doctors, in a sense of instead of. There's a sort of like we all need doctors, but we're also like beating doctors down because we're perceived to be these really rich people in ivory towers, which is so far from the truth. I mean your 60-year-old plastic surgeon from 30 years ago maybe, but not the case these days. So much.
Kate Coomber:It's that small percentage that they might be focusing on there, rather than the person.
Sonia Henry:Yeah, exactly.
Kate Coomber:Because we want to be attracting people into this profession right and making sure that it can be a well-supported, long-lasting career.
Sonia Henry:Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know what? Like I always say to him I do quite a lot of talks for medical students. I say the thing about general practice. I mean, look, people want to do whatever they want to specialise in, but the great thing about being a GP is you can create the life that you want, which is actually much more important than what people understand. I mean, when you're 19 or 25 and you're in medical school and you're like, well, this is going to be this, that or the rest of it, but life changes and evolves and flexibility, good financial remuneration and also the ability to have work whenever you need work is quite amazing, I think. And I've got some friends who have quite high-powered jobs in London and that sort of thing, but they're nowhere near the job stability that you have as a general practitioner.
Sam Miklos:When you talk about changes that need to be made. What are some of the changes that you think could be made to just create better wellbeing for the doctors?
Sonia Henry:Oh, they need to be much more practical. Like I said, they need to open up the training spots for the colleges. So then people can't be stuck being unaccredited registrars for like 10 years and then still getting onto a training program I mean stuff like that.
Sonia Henry:Yeah, and there needs to be. I think we also need to acknowledge the gp shortage in australia, like the governments need to acknowledge it instead of sort of because they don't want to do gp training because they're paid less during the registrar years and in the hospital. I think they are changing some of that. Someone said I think my dad sent me an article that queensland and victoria are changing their awards or something. They need to do that in new south wales as well. Um, I think we need to acknowledge we've got a really severe shortage in australia of doctors and no one can replace doctors, that we've got all this sort of pharmacy prescribing nurse practitioners which you know, nurse practitioners are great.
Sonia Henry:I'm not to be honest yeah, but they're not. It's not like being a doctor. You don't have that kind of training and I always say to people who should have would counter that I'm like well, you're perfectly welcome to go and spend 50 000 years at wall and then 10 years training and doing a very expensive fellowship, like no one's stopping you from doing that. And until you do it, you don't know the breadth of knowledge that you require. Um, and I think we need as a country and as a government is to acknowledge the shortage and to actually either you know, fix a pay structure, make conditions more attractive if we want doctors to work remotely, we have to have much better infrastructure out there really either fix a pay structure, make conditions more attractive. If we want doctors to work remotely, we have to have much better infrastructure out there really to attract people long-term.
Sonia Henry:I've been interviewed by regional health ministers and all of these things are. What people want is practical solutions, and that's usually driven by money and politics. Whether that will change change I don't know, but in the meantime you can still enjoy a very satisfying life as a doctor. But you just have to be aware of these issues and work your way around them and it sounds like find the right place for you and varying yes, it's a subject to where you are, what the health services, what the resources are, and find what it's going to be very bespoke for everyone.
Sonia Henry:Yeah, and then you have the capacity to find that bespoke experience if you like. It's funny, we went bespoke in relation to remote outback Australia.
Sam Miklos:I'm not listening to you out there. I know this is the word bespoke. It's a funny word to use. It's so funny.
Kate Coomber:I'ming Australia.
Sonia Henry:I think friends and stuff who work in Broome and live there and they'll live there for the rest of their lives and they love it, and I can say, wow, broome is a fantastic place and there's lots of people, oh, it's fantastic. Yeah, so you know, you can make it work very easily.
Kate Coomber:You just have to have the guts to kind of step outside your comfort zone, I guess definitely. Well, look for every um guest that's coming on the show. We're raising a bit of awareness for a charity of your choice and donating 500 also. What's the charity for you today, sonia?
Sonia Henry:well. I mean, I've actually already spoken about it. So my charity of choice is that is the council, that I'm a board, not a board member, a council member. Or we don't have a board, not a board member, a council member. Or if we don't have a board, it's the Medical Benevolence Association of New South Wales, which is quite a I hate the word secretive, but it's just because it's been around for 150 years, so their marketing hasn't been that great.
Sonia Henry:I mean, our new executive officer is excellent, but it's a council of doctors, some specialists, some gps also. Gps are specialists I should not say that um and they've been around for years where they devote. It's a totally not-for-profit charity, um, and we have meetings every month where we um just go through cases of doctors or family members of doctors who have called us up, who are in real distress, be be that financial, emotional. The council actually provides really practical solutions. We fundraise, we have social workers on board, we have a financial advisor. Certainly, if you hear some of the stories you hear, you realise that doctors aren't living this dream life that everyone thinks that they are, and it's a great cause. It's totally managed just by these. I think there's about 10 of us 12 of us on the council and no one's paid or anything. It's literally just a council to help doctors who feel they have nowhere else to turn.
Sam Miklos:Yeah, what a fabulous show. Thank you yeah it's great.
Sonia Henry:It's a great organisation. I'm very proud to be part of it. I was just going to say I'm proud to be part of that.
Sam Miklos:Yeah, it's really great to hear that and hopefully from today we'll be able to shine a little bit of awareness as well, like where you say it's secretive, like to get a little bit of marketing in that direction, even with our team making sure that they know to be letting our doctors know that.
Sonia Henry:um yeah, um well, I think there's a great, there's a queensland branch, there's a touring branch, but um we have to communicate with the branches. But louise, who's that executive officer? She?
Sam Miklos:knows all that stuff. Fantastic, sonia. Thank you so much for your time. It's been great to speak with you. We both really enjoyed the book and, um, we so appreciate you jumping on it. It's like 6 am or something for you there, like you like. Oh, that's so fresh. We really can't wait to see the third book and oh thanks.
Sonia Henry:I think it's been great. Thanks very much for the talking.
Kate Coomber:Good luck with the podcast well, thank you, you must pop in.
Sonia Henry:Oh, I will I like, I like bruce benton great town um. It's really come on in the last 10, 15 years.
Kate Coomber:It really has.
Sonia Henry:So many cool restaurants and yeah, no, no, definitely no. Thanks very much I really appreciate it.
Sam Miklos:Fantastic, thank you. Enjoy your trip. Thanks for listening. Don't forget to share, rate and review. This allows us to reach more people and share more incredible stories. Click the follow or subscribe button to ensure you never miss an episode.
