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
Air Force to Outback: Dr Karyn Matterson’s Unconventional Path to Medicine
Content warning: This episode discusses suicide and may be distressing for some listeners. If you feel you could be triggered by this content, you may want to skip this episode.
Dr. Karyn Matterson’s path to medicine was anything but typical. Building a career first in tourism, a devastating personal tragedy shifted her purpose entirely, leading her to study clinical dietetics before ultimately pursuing medicine. Determined to create security for her family while making a real impact, Karyn joined the Australian Defence Force, balancing medical studies with family life. Her journey was far from easy, and in this episode, Karyn shares the challenges she overcame and the lessons that shaped her along the way.
Eleven years as an Air Force doctor honed Karyn’s adaptability and teamwork skills, preparing her for the complexities of rural healthcare. Now the Director of Medical Services at Blackall Hospital in outback Queensland, Karyn is a passionate advocate for rural general practice and the vital role of locum doctors in remote communities. Throughout her career, Karyn has also taken an active role in many professional committees, contributing to the development of rural healthcare policies and workforce solutions. She gives an inside look at life in outback Queensland - what it’s like to live and work there and the unique challenges facing rural healthcare.
Karyn’s story is a powerful reminder that purpose often emerges from life’s toughest moments. Whether you're a doctor considering locum work, curious about rural healthcare, or simply love stories of resilience, this episode is one you won’t want to miss.
It Takes Heart is hosted by cmr CEO Sam Miklos, alongside Head of Talent and Employer Branding, Kate Coomber.
We Care; Music by Waveney Yasso
More about Karyn's Organisation of Choice, Remote Australian's Matter.
Remote Australians Matter is a community-driven organisation that empowers and encourages remote Australians to join and participate in the design and development of solutions that are fit for their community and their residents.
Connect with Karyn on LinkedIn.
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Follow @ittakesheartpodcast on Instagram, @cmr | Cornerstone Medical Recruitment on Linked In, @cornerstonemedrec on TikTok and @CornerstoneMedicalRecruitment on Facebook.
Welcome to it Takes Heart. I'm.
Sam Miklos:Kate and I'm Sam, and we can't wait to share more incredible stories of healthcare professionals making an impact across Australia.
Karyn Matterson:The only way I could get to go and do medicine after I got through the GAMSAT and all those of it was to join the Defence Force. So I was a doctor in the Air Force for 11 years. Becoming a doctor would mean security for me and my family. As far as my profession, it would enable me to do something, to try and make a difference somewhere.
Kate Coomber:We acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land of which we meet who, for centuries, have shared ancient methods of healing and cared for their communities. We pay our respects to elders, past and present.
Sam Miklos:So today we're here with Dr Karen Madison, who has come almost a thousand kilometres from Blackall Hospital in Outback Queensland. Karen is a specialist GP and rural generalist with a passion for primary healthcare for every Australian everywhere. What Kate and I found particularly fascinating about Karen is that healthcare wasn't her first career choice. She had a successful career in events and tourism before a life-changing event brought a different perspective and guided her toward a career with purpose in healthcare. She's currently the Director of Medical Services for Blackall Hospital and has always taken an active role in various professional committees, such as the Queensland Faculty of the RACGP or the Council for GP at AMA Queensland. She previously held the role of President of GP Registrars Australia as well. A fun fact about Karen is that she's great friends with Sonia Henry, who you may remember from season one of the podcast. Karen, thank you so much for joining us and welcome to. It Takes Heart.
Karyn Matterson:Thanks Sam. Thanks Kate, nice to be here, yeah.
Sam Miklos:I want to start first with Sonia.
Karyn Matterson:Okay.
Sam Miklos:Everyone does. We loved the book and obviously, the book was the inspiration for the podcast, just telling these great stories of all of these amazing healthcare professionals in our country. Were you one of the characters in the book?
Karyn Matterson:Look, I cannot confirm and I don't know, because Sonia was very, very careful about keeping every identity a secret, and there's lots of fiction in there, as well Is there as well.
Sam Miklos:You've got to tell a good story. That's always my motto. Don't let the truth get in the way of, and there's lots of fiction in there as well, is there as well. You've got to tell a good, never hold back a bit. There's a good story there as well. That's always my motto Don't let the truth get in the way of a good story.
Karyn Matterson:How did you meet Sonia? We met at medical school. We actually did our rural clinical school placement together up in a little town called Lithgow, which is an hour and a half out of the Sutherland Shire, where I grew up. Oh, did you yeah yeah, in New South Wales and Sonny and I and two other of our fellow students four of us were up there for about 10 weeks in placement. We had an amazing time, which involved going down a mine shaft one day Working, or just as a social.
Kate Coomber:No, no, no, not for fun.
Karyn Matterson:We were actually quite terrified at times. It was pitch black, dark and wet.
Karyn Matterson:We got dressed up in our fluoro overalls, got in this little tram and we went like down, down, down down I would be and it was but it was amazing seeing all of the um, the, the life and the work that goes on underground, because Lithgow is um a coal mining area and a steel production area, and for us to go down there and then we spent time with the occupational physician that worked with the mines, so the medicine context was then, you know, overlaid in that particular experience. It was incredible. But then we had bingo at the Lithgow RSL too, which was amazing Down in the mountains.
Karyn Matterson:Yeah, so we've been great friends since then. And Sonia's actually come out to Blackall on a locum stint for me as well, so she knows the area out there.
Kate Coomber:Now, what we found really fascinating when we were speaking is that and as Sam mentioned, you had a career before medicine. Talk us through it. I think there's a bit of a. Probably people assume that people go through primary school saying I'm going to be a doctor, and then everything they do is leading to that straight from school, not to mention the years to to become a doctor so yeah, to have other careers like yeah, how did it happen for you?
Sam Miklos:where do you want to be when you left school?
Karyn Matterson:well, that's a really good question. I sort of took a lot of detours on the way. I remember being a kid and wanting to be involved in advocacy of some sort and it started out in grade five, I think it was and wrote a letter to the Prime Minister about save the baby seals letter to the Prime Minister about save the baby seals. And I remember that picture with their big black, doughy eyes looking out at me on the ice and on the snow, and I thought, oh, I've got to write, I've got to do something here.
Karyn Matterson:I've really got to, you know, have a say and do something. And so I wrote a letter and that sort of you know. I got a response which was fantastic and then sort of went from there. And then in year seven a fellow student of mine got run over by a bus in front of the school and I thought this isn't right, we've got to do something about this. And I wrote a letter to the local newspaper advocating for a bus bay to be put in, and a bus bay was put in, for a bus bay to be put in, and a bus bay was put in.
Karyn Matterson:And so I got this passion for doing stuff and getting involved and, you know, making a difference wherever I could, and sort of went on from there. I was in youth groups and all sorts of things. And then my family moved down to Tasmania and then my family moved down to Tasmania and it was all different for me. They had a different schooling system. I was in year 10 at the time. You know had the typical year 10 distractions that you do, don't know what you mean.
Kate Coomber:Yeah.
Karyn Matterson:And so I decided to leave school at 16. And then I left school and I walked up to my first employer and knocked on the door and said, can I have a job please? And I started as a junior accounts clerk and I remember I was earning $120 a week.
Sam Miklos:Did you get it in a little packet? Yes, remember that. Yeah.
Karyn Matterson:And he used to take the mail out and they used to look after balancing the petty cash and all of that type of thing mail out and they used to look after the you know, balancing the petty cash and you know all of that type of thing. And then the company shut down in Tasmania and we had a choice we could go anywhere in Australia or we could take a redundancy package. Now at 16, almost 17,.
Karyn Matterson:I thought, bugger it. I'm going to go travel, and so I got posted to Ayers Rock. I'm going to go travel, and so I got posted to Ayers Rock, and I lived in Ayers Rock as a front office person at Yallara there for six months Wow.
Kate Coomber:And you went on your own. I was on my own, or was there a few people being posted?
Karyn Matterson:People got posted anywhere and everywhere.
Sam Miklos:How did? You find that Because I was there this year and I'm visualising, I'm like 16, 17.
Karyn Matterson:Yeah, I was 16 and I was frightened. I've still got friends from Ed's Rock and there was one particular lady that took me under her wing and looked after me which was fantastic because I was so young Climbed the rock, had family come and visit you know, did a little bit of a fashion parade when the fashion came out like, got involved in the community and you know I met many, many people. But then went back to Sydney and stayed in tourism at the time and that was my first career tourism and particularly inbound tourism. And again, I still know people from my first career tourism and in particularly inbound tourism. And again I still know people from my inbound tourism days and my role was developing programs for executives that won trips to come to Australia that they couldn't they couldn't buy the program off the shelf, that in a brochure. We had to do it from go to go, start to finish and it was a life full of fun and laughter and parties and dress-ups and lots of fireworks we extended the Hamilton.
Karyn Matterson:Island runway to get a German aircraft, a DC-10, in there. So it was stuff that we were doing to make it a fantastic experience for everyone. And that's when I met my husband, matthew, when I was doing an all-nighter trying to get 150 Americans out to Australia and win a job which we won, by the way. But I met him because he was a security guard at the time and he brought me back breakfast and we fell in love and got married and had our first child and moved up to Port Douglas in far north Queensland where I was running Village Carnivale. And unfortunately, that's the time where tragedy sort of struck in my life and Matthew suicided of struck in my life and Matthew suicided and Elise, my daughter. She was just before she was one years of age. It was the day before her first birthday party. Oh my goodness.
Karyn Matterson:And her birthday fell a couple of days before. So that, needless to say, was life changing, but not just for me. It was bad for me but it's worse for it's been worse for children of people that suicide, you know, not to have an opportunity to meet their parent and family and friends and colleagues. I call it the ripple effect. That ripple effect just permeates through people when someone suicides and it takes a lot for someone to get through that really intense time when there's funerals and sadness and all that grief. Did you have family around? Well, my family were all in Sydney.
Karyn Matterson:Sydney yeah, and I was. As I say, I was up there running this event and then I got a job in a marketing, tourism, marketing company and I remember being up in the office and getting a message to call a police officer and this police officer delivered the news to me over the phone and it was just so traumatic. People came running from everywhere, not knowing what had gone on, because you know, I just, you know screamed. You just don't know how it's going to affect you at the time.
Sam Miklos:How do you? You said about like, how did you get through that moment, like with a one year old, to get through those years?
Karyn Matterson:Yeah. So my mum and dad were on a plane immediately, and I remember that night just mum and dad, you know, hugging me because I was just insoluble. Um, yeah. So there comes a time when there's quiet, though, and that quiet usually happens after the funeral's done and everyone goes home and goes back to their life and life goes on right. And in that quiet moment I thought again I've got to do something.
Karyn Matterson:And I remember lying on Four Mile Beach when everyone had gone home and everything was quiet and I felt the warmth of the sand and I had it in my hands and I thought I've got to relearn again. I have to do something. I have to do something more than fun and frivolity and parties and you know and no denigration whatsoever to that industry, because I love it, but for me I had to do something, and so I went back and I relearned. I felt like I needed to relearn again and I went back and I did my HSC. I hadn't done my H HSC with a one-year-old and I went back and did that, and then I got myself into Sydney Uni to study psychology and that lasted about two minutes.
Kate Coomber:I can imagine going into psychology too. I mean coming out of what you just have that in itself would be challenging subjects I hated the biostatistics.
Karyn Matterson:It was just like no, I can't do this. And you know I still do it in my role now. But you know, anyway at that time I just didn't do it and I went back to tourism for a little bit and then I decided to try again and I got myself into clinical dietetics and I spent the next four years studying nutrition and dietetics at the University of Wollongong and graduated with class one honours. Well done, thank you. How old was Elise by this stage?
Kate Coomber:Oh gosh, she was eight Incredible yeah, just amazing.
Karyn Matterson:Yeah, yeah, yeah, she was still in primary school and I'd had another child by then, because I'd been married again with my second husband so, yeah, travis was very young as well, so he was only five and yeah, then started my own business working as a clinical dietitian.
Karyn Matterson:so that's how I sort of got into health care, because I felt like I needed to do something that was going to help more people. And clinical dietetics is I'm just going to be a little bit biased here, but I think it's very underrated and hasn't been supported in the past for many Australians to get access to good clinical, evidence-based data about clinical nutrition and dietetics. So I'm really, you know, I do take that opportunity to use it wherever I can within my role as a doctor. So then, yeah, I had my own business as a dietitian. I implanted myself in GP surgeries around New South Wales. I did virtually I did a lot of aged care work for nursing homes in the Shire. That was a big area of interest, and so was weight management and obesity, and I actually had the opportunity to not only be the national convener for the Rehabilitation and Aged Care Group for DAA Dietitians Association, but also had the opportunity to speak to the House of Representatives in the obesity inquiry in 2000. I think it was 2006, 2008.
Sam Miklos:Yeah, incredible opportunity, yeah, but.
Karyn Matterson:I couldn't get medicine out of my head.
Sam Miklos:I was just going to say, was medicine coming up through when you'd been in those private practices?
Kate Coomber:Yeah, Did it sort of evolve, because you could see the knock-on effect and you could see the links.
Karyn Matterson:Yeah, I could see the links, because I could deliver all of this information to my patients, which they found really, really useful. But if I didn't have the GP on board, then then there was no incentive for the GP to be involved. It was very difficult to deliver a holistic therapy, so to speak, to the patient. So I just thought, no, I need to be the one writing the care plan. Yeah, I need to be orchestrating it and understanding how it works. I need to get that. I need to be there and I need to do more. I just need to do more.
Kate Coomber:And so was GP always on the radar or when you went into medicine. So going to medical school, then was that a very clear vision that I want to be a general practitioner, or was it a bit open at that stage?
Karyn Matterson:It was open and it's really interesting that you bring up that point because through medical school and pre-vocational training, many, many people might have a special interest but they still haven't decided. I was interested in emergency medicine, but the only way I could get to go and do medicine after I got through the GAMSAT and all the rest of it was to join the Defence Force. So I was a doctor in the Air Force for 11 years and the reason being was I was sponsored through medical school because I had a family.
Kate Coomber:I had a mortgage.
Karyn Matterson:I had everything. It was the only way I could do it. And did someone plant that idea to you? I'm like how did you do medical?
Sam Miklos:school because I had a family, I had a mortgage, I had everything. It was the only way I could do it. And did someone plant that idea to you? I'm like, how did you do medical?
Karyn Matterson:school.
Sam Miklos:So I wasn't aware of that, yeah.
Kate Coomber:Did someone just recommend that to you, or was it just through research that you saw that as an option? Through research?
Karyn Matterson:Yeah, through research, and then obviously, when you come along, you've got a decent score and all the rest of it and you're a Commonwealth supported place, defence goes. Thanks very much, yep we'll take you. And yeah. So I then, after my internship and residency, went on base.
Sam Miklos:And for 11 years was it, did you say?
Karyn Matterson:So 11 years in total, and for 11 years did you say so, 11 years in total. So my medical training. Throughout training I was supported by defence, paid a salary so I was able to maintain a family.
Sam Miklos:I was on my third husband by then.
Karyn Matterson:by that stage, who was my high school sweetheart?
Sam Miklos:by the way from Tasmania.
Kate Coomber:From Tasmania.
Sam Miklos:Yes, what a full circle moment.
Kate Coomber:Is he your current husband?
Sam Miklos:Yes, he is, I was just going to say you're going to know, he's it Wow.
Kate Coomber:Yeah, and did you have you need to talk to Sonia because you could write a book too? You really could write a book. Yeah, we haven't even got started yet. Sorry, I apologise. I like it. There's so many questions.
Sam Miklos:So many things. Can I ask when you said you lived on base with the family?
Karyn Matterson:No.
Sam Miklos:So you were flying home Like what was the frequency?
Karyn Matterson:So through medical school I was with the family and through internship and residency, and I did my internship and residency at St George Hospital in New South Wales. I then was posted to Williamtown, up in Newcastle and I lived off on base but away from home.
Karyn Matterson:So I was living away from home, my family was still in Sydney and so I used to travel up and travel back, Travel up travel back Every week every month, every, not every fortnight, basically yeah, yeah, and the kids were getting you know older at this stage and a lot more independent and um, yeah, so it's easier when the kids are a little bit older. It's really difficult when they're younger yeah, yes it is.
Sam Miklos:We are in those trenches like solidly right now. Yeah, so I did a few years at williamtown and then was posted to amberley you know, um, for for anyone listening who's coming like how, how did you do that there would have been so many challenges to overcome to? To you know, studying as a mature age student, being being away from home, like what were the biggest challenges or roadblocks that you faced, but then how did you overcome them?
Karyn Matterson:Okay. So memory, yeah. So when you get older it's harder to study, not only because it's just physiologically harder to retain that information, it's also family pressures, yeah, yeah. And you know, I'd go home and be trying to study and I'd have Trav my son at the door. Mum, can I have this? Yes, can I do this? What are you doing?
Kate Coomber:Yes, yes, yes. What are you doing now, Mum?
Karyn Matterson:And then, in contrast, I'd have my daughter come up and she'd give me a nice massage. I'm like, oh stop. But yeah, lots of distractions. You overcome it by sheer determination, Sam.
Sam Miklos:You're so focused on that, yeah.
Karyn Matterson:Yeah, and it's like this, is this Like? Becoming a doctor would mean security for me and my family, as far as my profession, for the rest of our lives. It would enable me to do something, to try and make a difference somewhere, with someone or a community or a system, and it would you know just you know, have me busy, I guess.
Kate Coomber:You can see how purpose-driven you are and how much it obviously just fills your cup to be doing the right thing for people.
Sam Miklos:Yeah, I try and to be helping and that's obviously innate, since you were little yeah. When you left then Defence. What's the journey been from there to now? To now and where did the love for rural health come in and Black Hole yeah.
Karyn Matterson:So when I left the Defence Force I was like a kid in a candy shop. I traversed the country from Darwin down to Tasmania out to Palm Island, Just locuming, Locuming.
Sam Miklos:For a couple of years.
Kate Coomber:And on your own or taking family with you. Or a bit of a mix, bit of a mix.
Karyn Matterson:Yeah, a bit of years, yeah, and on your own or taking family with you, or a bit of a mix. Bit of a mix, yeah, yeah, a bit of a mix. So a lot of the local places. Simon would, my husband would um come with me and what? Does simon do, uh he, he works um in the banking industry.
Sam Miklos:He's completely not involved in medicine yeah, he can't come along and work in those areas, because some of our some of our guests have been like taking their husbands along and they in those areas. No, because some of our guests have been like taking their husbands along and they'll do some handiwork around the hospital, or yeah, and he just comes along.
Karyn Matterson:Yeah Well, simon's got this incredible knack of just being there as well for people whenever they need it, so like even in our house up in Blackhall, there's little things that might need doing, like the water tank might have a valve that needs turning, or the gas needs replacing or something, and usually the doctor would say to the maintenance people or the business manager can you do this, but Simon just gets out and does it, gets it done.
Karyn Matterson:Yeah, can you do this, but Simon just gets out and does it, gets it done, yeah and I mean the feedback that he has is that it takes a huge pressure off for someone to actually just be there. But yeah, he does really well in communities, fairly quiet type of man, but he does well to make friends.
Sam Miklos:So you locumumed all around, all around, yeah, all around Australia. What were some of your favourite?
Karyn Matterson:places I loved Cap Coast, so up in Yipoon there that was pretty great. I was there for that's where I'm from. Oh, really, you grew up there Nice area?
Kate Coomber:Yeah, really nice area.
Karyn Matterson:Wangaratta was pretty good too down in Victoria.
Sam Miklos:We've always faced a lot of candidates down in Wangaratta. They've always loved it.
Karyn Matterson:Yeah, the hospital there. I basically just looked after fast track there in emergency and it was fantastic because the GPs are very, very good at dealing with those cat four and fives that come into. Oh, we're good with dealing with emergencies too, because that's what we do. But to be able to turn people over and see them and see them in the time that we are used to seeing patients is really useful for some of those country hospitals and a lot of the presentations I've got to say. You know, gps know what they're looking at, whereas you know non-GP specialists sometimes are just not. They know it, but it's not a common thing that they see.
Karyn Matterson:So they don't recognise it maybe as quickly like some sort of rash.
Sam Miklos:Yeah Something like that.
Karyn Matterson:So I mean that's a good example of rash you know, yeah, yeah.
Sam Miklos:What do you love about? Because obviously, when you were locuming around and going to these rural and regional locations, what do you love most about those roles versus maybe settling in one of the?
Karyn Matterson:metropolitan areas to experience Australia from a different perspective. Different areas offer different things, different landscapes, different feels, different people and people, I think, in rural and remote areas have unique stories, just as people do in metro, but people live in metro and don't talk to each other in communities forever, whereas it's a little bit different in remote and rural places. People tend to talk and ask questions.
Kate Coomber:Yeah, it's come up a little bit, hasn't it, that some of the city health care professionals that we have are actually the loneliest they've ever felt and they're in these metro areas with everything at their disposal, with people everywhere, yet lonely, yeah, and they go out to to more rural communities and there's that real fiction yeah, there's, people do things together it's.
Karyn Matterson:It's funny because, uh, that parrot, the paradox of being the furthest away and being, you know, just so isolated, are some of the times when I felt the closest, yeah, to people. You know so, um, that fabric and that mesh work is, and and when I say people, I'm talking about other professionals that are in the area nursing staff or allied health staff and you know that teamwork and I guess that's defense really built that teamwork ethos and so did dietetics that teamwork ethos. You've got toetics that teamwork ethos. You've got to collaborate with other people. You've got to collaborate and you've got to talk to people and you've got to problem solve and you know, sometimes you are there by yourself and you're just it, you know, and that's pretty scary, but in Metro you sort of and especially this is so difficult for a lot of our young early career doctors going into specialist general practice training. They feel so alone in their room and it's quite isolating.
Kate Coomber:Because they're a general practitioner in a clinic room.
Sam Miklos:Yeah rather than in a ward with other people and other beds.
Kate Coomber:How do we?
Karyn Matterson:help that. I think peer learning is really important and networks are really important. It's a big role for our colleges and our associations to play in that, having not only professional mentorship but also that peer near peer.
Karyn Matterson:Especially if you're going out into these locations too and then feeling that lack of connection, or yeah yeah would be so important that's right, um, and certainly moving from pre-vocational training into specialist general practice or rural generalism. There's so much more we can do in order to, you know, put some guardrails or some supports in place to not only help pre-vocational doctors choose GP, specialist GP and rural generalist training, but also to keep them in it.
Sam Miklos:What would you say those?
Karyn Matterson:guardrails are. What would you say those guardrails are? Well, there's the planks of being recognised as an equitable specialty training program with other specialty training programs. Currently GP registrars. Take, you know, in metro areas, take a huge pay cut to come into training metro areas take a huge pay cut to come into training.
Kate Coomber:So just some support for base rate parity and support You've got to seek it as an equal career right. You've got to seek it, they should be, rewarded in the same way.
Sam Miklos:Second class career, poor cousin yeah, I was just going to say the poor relative of every other specialty.
Karyn Matterson:Yeah, because it's not easy. Generalism is again. I'm going to go out on a limb and I don't mean to offend any of my non-GP specialist colleagues here, but generalism's hard, it's bloody hard.
Sam Miklos:That's come through a lot yeah.
Karyn Matterson:It's not just one system, it's all systems and you know that seeking of information and that surgical sieve, the sifting and the sorting, and which way do you go, which alleyway do you go down to try and help this patient. It's really challenging and it's a profession and you can't learn that profession in a one-hour webinar.
Kate Coomber:And even the personal skills, I imagine, that are required by a GP maybe not in others to ask the right questions, to get the right information of people who maybe aren't forthcoming.
Karyn Matterson:Yeah, Very different. Yeah, it is very different. Sorry, Sam, I forgot your question.
Sam Miklos:No, I felt like you answered it. Oh, I didn't know the guardrails.
Kate Coomber:I was like what are the guardrails?
Sam Miklos:I was thinking like is there anything else? That might hold them back.
Karyn Matterson:Yeah, so there's those, the systemic guardrails, as in, you know, the salary supports and the leave supports. Like GP, registrars need study leave and exam leave, just like hospital non-GP registrars need it.
Karyn Matterson:So supports around that parental leave, paid parental leave for them as well. So that's, they're really important systemic changes that need to be enacted without the detriment of anyone in other areas. It's just got to be a little bit of an uplift there, from a collegiate perspective again, those peer hubs and the supports and the knowing where to go and potentially value, matching a supervisor with a registrar and you know, and ensuring that they know that there's support out there through not only their employers but also with the fantastic organisations like Doctors for Doctors or the Rural Doctors Foundation. You know, all of those supports that are out there just trying to link that information together. That's such a piece I was just thinking when you were talking about the support piece when I graduated as an occupational therapist.
Sam Miklos:I went up to Toowoomba Hospital and all the seniors were pregnant and they all kind of disappeared and there was four of us that were graduates at the time and just that feeling of I don't know who our people are, who's there to support us, that it was such an unsettling time and it was so much pressure on the one person but not being able to link up. We kind of created our own little support network and tried to seek out other graduates and other health services around us to get us through that and you kind of underestimate that You've come out and you're so excited to go.
Karyn Matterson:But it can really detract you as well, Yep. And then you go oh no, I'm ready to go, I'm ready to go.
Sam Miklos:I remember an orthopedic surgeon coming to me and saying can you make a hand splint?
Kate Coomber:I don't know where to turn it on, but go on.
Sam Miklos:There's no hand therapist there. I went, oh.
Kate Coomber:I'm a crack, you could have manual. He's like no, you do, I was like oh, I'm out, I'm going to London, literally, yeah, so it sounds like support. Is that overarching in various different mechanisms of what they need? I I guess if you were standing in a room of those junior doctors and you were standing there talking to them about how rural generalism can be as a career or GP, what do you say to them to really not to sell to them? But, what do you inspire them?
Karyn Matterson:Yeah, Well, there's again lots of different areas, because everyone is different as far as what floats their boat.
Kate Coomber:And their why Everyone's got a different, why yeah?
Karyn Matterson:So I talk about how good the medicine is, how wide the medicine is as far as scope, and there's a time when you have to take deep dives into that medicine when you've got something happening.
Kate Coomber:Yeah.
Karyn Matterson:And I talk about the connection to people and feeling like you're actually making a difference to that person. And then I talk about doing, because in rural medicine we say you can't be what you can't see. So it takes a lot of people being to grow the profession, to grow the profession, and you know, I think generally healthcare professionals are.
Kate Coomber:You know they've got an element of altruism most.
Karyn Matterson:Yes, yeah, it's like we're doing good for yeah, yeah yeah, we're changing everything.
Karyn Matterson:Yeah, we're changing everything we're doing good for the country we're doing good for our neighbor, our community, and that contribution to the community is what inspires a lot of people. And you know it's true. Again, we go back to starting in the bush. If you grow healthcare professionals in the bush, if you're growing them in those remote areas, if you're growing them, you remote areas, if you're growing them, you know the kids on cattle farms that are out in outback Queensland or anywhere in Australia then they're going to go back there because that's their community. And you know there's so many young people that are inspired when they go to the doctor and they see their doctor. They're inspired to become a doctor. So it's really important, um to say, as health care professionals, as young doctors, as pre-vocational doctors and medical students, you know, use that feeling of your altruism and use it and shine with it. You can do, you can be.
Karyn Matterson:Yeah, you can do you can be, and you know, sometimes it takes people a longer journey to get to where they are. But when you're there, geez, it feels good.
Kate Coomber:And I'm sure you can speak from your own personal experience. It doesn't have to be the first idea you've had. No, you can get there whenever it takes you there.
Karyn Matterson:Yeah, I think the average careers most people have is three careers in a lifetime. Now, isn't that right? I'm sure it'll be more now that life expectancy is longer and longer.
Sam Miklos:Recently, I was saying we're going to live to 110. Oh good. Recently, I was saying we're going to live to 110. Oh good, oh, that's right.
Kate Coomber:We were at a conference going what?
Karyn Matterson:What are we going to do? Oh, that's good. I want to live to 110.
Sam Miklos:Well, there you go. You might have the fourth career. You know, there's still time. Tell us about, then. Blackall, oh yeah.
Kate Coomber:Blackall Took the words out of my mouth. Yeah, let's inspire people to go there, for example.
Sam Miklos:Okay, you mentioned that you live on the grounds earlier when you were talking. What's it like, what's a hospital like? What's being out there? It's the experience.
Karyn Matterson:Yeah, blackhall is. The Blackhall Tambo region is a community of about 1,400, 1,500 people. We're the only GP in town. So Central West Queensland is an area of Queensland Health that actually owns all the general practice Because Medicare and the funding and all the rest of it there's been, the owners of general practice have left and it's happening all over Australia. We see it happening all over Australia. So the state has picked up all of the GP services. We're very lucky in Blackhall because we've got a brand new hospital and GP surgery. So it's four years old.
Karyn Matterson:And when I first arrived in Blackhall because I went on a cook's tour of the central west with my boss, dr David Walker, and one of the general managers of acute care, fabulous nurse Karen McClellan, and I did a bit of a cook's tour. I did Blackall and Buckholden and Longreach and they were showing me all the different areas, knowing that I'd locumed all over the place. But they really wanted me to see the area. And I went into Blackhawne and I was like this fabulous, brand new facility just built by St Hillier's, who now are broke they're one of many after you know what we've gone through through post-COVID. But yes, fabulous hospital, brand-new facilities and there's only GP in town, and so I just went. Oh dang, what a difference I can make.
Sam Miklos:Yeah, everyone is going to come and see me. Because, were you sort of scoping around at this point to go, where do I want to settle? Like was this point to go? Where do I want to settle, Like was this after Locaming? Where do I want to?
Karyn Matterson:land. Yeah, where do I want to land? Because Locaming is great, it's a great experience, but you're there flying in and you're not part of a team and you know as much as you are made to feel.
Kate Coomber:Welcome the mantra virtually as soon as you land is oh, please stay, and that must make it really hard to leave as well, when people just want you there, yeah, and it's those I mean.
Karyn Matterson:it might be a bit much to say it's a moral injury, but in a way I mean general practitioners. If they can't do something, you know, it does feel a little bit difficult. So sorry, I digress um no, no, it's wonderful relevant yeah so, yeah, I landed in Blackall and um had a bit of a look and um Barkie had a fabulous, fabulous acting DMS already in place, waylon and you know. So that was you know if there was someone in place.
Karyn Matterson:There's no way that you're going to you know, want to you know, be competition when the area needs so much.
Kate Coomber:So it's like no.
Karyn Matterson:And then Longreach. And Longreach has got a fabulous team of GP anaesthetists and GP obstetricians and they had a birthing centre up there and a lot of local women give birth up there and they have specialists come out all the time. It's like, oh, that's a bit big for my first.
Kate Coomber:DMS gig.
Karyn Matterson:Yeah, yeah, I want to, just, you know, settle in a little bit Settle in get to know the area.
Karyn Matterson:I mean, we're a team of 30 doctors out there across Central West and, as I say, we've got skilled GP, anaesthetists, gp, obstetricians, gp, eds such as myself. It's so far. You need to be able to manage everything. Yeah, but we can't. We still can't manage everything. We've got mental health subspecialties, we've got people with internal medicine, asts and paediatrics yeah. So we've got a team of we're not one or two doctors in Blackall, permanent doctors in Blackall. We're a team of 30 doctors that we can phone a friend when we need it Across that whole region yeah, across the whole region.
Karyn Matterson:So I thought, okay, this is great, I'll be, you know first DMS role, yeah. Team there. New facility Now where to live, yeah, and what is Simon, my husband, going?
Sam Miklos:to do as well.
Karyn Matterson:Thank goodness we didn't have to worry about childcare because my kids are grown up and there was a house on the premises named the Palace.
Sam Miklos:On the hospital grounds.
Karyn Matterson:Yeah, named the Palace. It's called the palace.
Kate Coomber:Yes, is it the palace it's actually very, very comfortable.
Karyn Matterson:The bugs think it's good too.
Kate Coomber:Yeah, they've moved in the bug palace and the geckos.
Karyn Matterson:Got those geckos poo yeah they do.
Sam Miklos:I knew Once you've got one they're in. Yeah, they're in yeah.
Karyn Matterson:So they're there, but then they help with the bugs, right, yeah, right, and that's what we keep on saying.
Sam Miklos:So we've just named them.
Karyn Matterson:Yes, I had a brown snake on my front fence a baby brown yeah.
Sam Miklos:Yeah.
Karyn Matterson:Yeah, a bit like that. So the house is great and it's only like 70 metres or so from the hospital. So the good side is that it's 70 metres or so from the hospital I was just about to say.
Kate Coomber:Are you too accessible at times? The bad side is how do you separate and have those?
Karyn Matterson:Well, actually everyone is really respectful and you know, we've got an amazing team of nurses out there, really some senior nurses and we've got some enthusiastic new grad nurses Central West runs a fantastic new grad program out there but everyone's really really respectful. When you're off, you're off, it's your time off, but I don't respect myself. I go into work all the time.
Sam Miklos:So I think that would be hard. I live 70 metres from this office. Yeah, I'd be in in the morning.
Kate Coomber:Turn the lights on that makes sense now, when we spoke the other day and you said you'd walked into the office. I thought surely she must be home now. Yeah, yeah, not far.
Karyn Matterson:No. So it's great, though, because I walk out my front door and there is this. Well, I walk out and there's usually kangaroos around. You've got brown snake on the fence.
Sam Miklos:Yeah, but that was once Sam. Yeah, I know, I know, Move forward, move forward.
Karyn Matterson:Yeah.
Sam Miklos:Kangaroos.
Karyn Matterson:Yeah, so kangaroos out in the front yard and I walk up further and there's all these budgerigars and natural bird life. The previous Director of Medical Services, Dr Kieran LaPlastia, who's down in the Gold Coast now, he and someone else, I think. Anyway, they did an amazing job of designing a native garden, a native Australian plants garden, and we've got all these. It attracts all these beautiful birds in the morning.
Kate Coomber:It's a noisy wake up every morning.
Karyn Matterson:It's gorgeous.
Kate Coomber:Beautiful natural alarm.
Karyn Matterson:Beautiful yeah. That, and then the cows mooing out one side and the kangaroos hopping on the other side, and I walk, walk, walk down the path and then sometimes my little echidna mates there on my way home, burrowing on the side as well, and then go into work.
Kate Coomber:It sounds quite vibrant because I think when some people think outback Queensland they would think no sound, maybe the odd squawking, I don't know crow or something yeah. But, that sounds really quiet.
Karyn Matterson:Yeah Well, Blackhall is one of the towns that is actually well, has the Artesian Basin running underneath, and so Blackhall, Tambo, that region has no water restrictions. So people have lovely gardens, lovely lawns. That's not what you would expect.
Kate Coomber:Yeah, yeah. What about to visit through Blackall?
Karyn Matterson:Yeah, it's interesting. So it's the Blackall Tambo region and Tambo is lots of sheep farmers, big sheep stations out there, and it's the home of Tambo Teddies, have you no so?
Kate Coomber:I took our kids to Carnarvon Gorge this year in wintertime. We had an amazing time. We're thinking of going back this year, but do we keep going on to Longreach and do that? And Winton, yeah, we are, we're doing that in a caravan, are you yeah? I didn't know that. I know right, Good on you. We're going all the way to Winton.
Sam Miklos:We might just stop at you on on the way through Easter next year we're doing two weeks in an RV with the three kids. Yeah right, fabulous. All the way out to Winton and Carnarvon.
Kate Coomber:Gorge and Longreach. This is it, because we only had a week and so we were just outside of in June and went into the gorge and things like that. But we thought, yeah, do we go longer next time and extend it, because the kids loved it.
Karyn Matterson:So much to see. Well, fair dinkum, fair dinkum. Every Aussie needs to go out west and see it Tambo Teddies at Tambo. Yeah, the Wool Scour at Blackhall, which is a fabulous display of you know how wool was classed and washed and processed in times when there was no massive machinery around and the communities that were there. And then on to Barkie. It's a birthplace of labour, with the tree of knowledge there. And then on to Longreach, home of Qantas, school of the air. The mighty Thompson River Got the big.
Kate Coomber:Stockall.
Karyn Matterson:The big Stockall Hall of Fame. We went there as kids, as a school camp, and then Winton with the magnificent dinosaur fossils and all the rest of it. You can see my tourism background.
Sam Miklos:I was about to say to you everything is selling it. I was a bit like yeah, we'll go and do it Now. I'm like, thank you, God, we've got a lot to do.
Kate Coomber:It's two weeks and that's fine. There's so much to see and I think that that's the really wonderful thing for people to also understand that they can get out and experience it. And I think that to be a healthcare professional, how amazing, regardless of what you do, to be able to travel and work in this way and work in this way, and to be able to experience these communities to shop before you buy, as it were, and have a look at these areas before you decide if you want to be somewhere a little bit more permanently.
Sam Miklos:Can I ask them, like what's next for you, because you've had these great careers? Is there another iteration? Is you know the DMS role? Is it staying in DMS role? Yeah, you know the dms role is it? Yeah, you know, leadership, which is different to where do you where I feel like you're not done there's a lot more to go like and is black hole long term. Is there other fact?
Kate Coomber:we're going back to school to be a fashion designer. You know what's the? What's the next career?
Karyn Matterson:things in here, yeah um, look, I think think being the president of GP Registrars Australia has given me a really nice entree and taste and grounding in, I guess, strategy at a political level. You know the ability to learn and interact with colleagues that are presidents of RACGP and ACRM and the fabulous CEOs that run those organisations. And you know wonderful people from AMA leadership Danielle McMullen, steve Robson, and then you know all of the RDAA people. You know all of the RDAA people and GP Registrars Australia. You know punches well above its weight in having its say and being active in that space.
Karyn Matterson:And I loved, know I still am in the space where I'm learning and gathering information and really for Blackall, really looking at workforce. And you know I've got a hybrid team out there. Out there and locums has been a dirty word for health care policy makers and governments for some time now and I want to change that because locums aren't a dirty word. I've got a magnificent team of regular fly-in, fly-out doctors and the community. They come back to the community and the community loves them. They love the community and they love the flexibility.
Kate Coomber:And locum doesn't mean not committed right. That's exactly right, so they're committed to the community, just because they're not there permanently. Yeah, yeah.
Karyn Matterson:The locums that are in our team out there are committed. And it's interesting because I was part of the RACGP Future Leaders Program and my project was called Bush Telegraph Doctors and it was about metro practices pairing up with bush practices to do basically an employment exchange.
Sam Miklos:Exchange yeah.
Karyn Matterson:And allowing metro doctors to go out to the bush, and they could go out for a month, or they to go out to the bush, and they could go out for a month, or they could go out for six months, or what have you? And whether it was for just to boost appointments and access or to, you know, relieve a bush doctor, for them to go on some leave, some annual leave.
Karyn Matterson:Yeah, that was the idea and then off that idea there was placements and memorandum of understanding in metro emergency departments for GPs to build their confidence again in trauma and ED situations. Yeah, and also, you know, also phone a friend. So I mean that system stuff is what interests me. Sam and I would love to have an opportunity looking at a specific area of interest, whether it be in I'm about to embark on medical weight management as a gypsy, a GP with special interests in a Brisbane clinic very shortly next year and just build use my dietetic skills and my medicine skills for that area. So, whether it's looking at systems in different areas around the world, like different clinics, how they work, or you know, I've got some sort of idea that I want to do some sort of research or study. Not necessarily I don't really want to write a scientific paper. Remember the statistics.
Sam Miklos:I was just going to say. I was like no, no, you wouldn't.
Karyn Matterson:Yeah, but I'd like to potentially do that. And then you know work to advocate, whether it be through RACGP or ACRM or you know take a.
Sam Miklos:The advocacy piece is still calling you right. I was going to say from the seals to healthcare, you know, and that's amazing.
Kate Coomber:So today, with every episode that goes out, CMR are donating to a charity of your choice. Where have you picked today?
Karyn Matterson:Well, there's an organisation called Remote Australians Matter and they're a fabulous advocacy organisation of which I'm a financial member and I would like to donate to that particular charity yeah wonderful. Thank you very much for that awesome opportunity to make that donation. I think that's very generous of you and the work that you guys are doing to get the message out there. It's just fabulous. So congratulations, both of you, thank you.
Sam Miklos:It's lovely hearing about the charities. We want to shine a light on charities that might also get a light shone on them.
Sam Miklos:And you know these conversations are so helpful and inspiring and thank you, karen, like, for trusting us with your story. You are such an inspirational lady, like when you hear you're not finishing high school, yeah, to where you are today. There will be so many people that will hear this and and just be so inspired in so many different ways, and even the love and the passion that you have for rural Australia, like you know. You just light up.
Kate Coomber:It's infectious. It's so infectious, I'm so excited now. I mean she's jumping in the caravan just off the back of this year I was a little bit like, but now.
Sam Miklos:I'm like, I'm in there. Yeah, we are so grateful that we got to have time with you today.
Kate Coomber:Thank you so much, thank you.
Sam Miklos:Can't wait to see the next step in advocacy for you as well and we'll see you in Blackhall next year.
Karyn Matterson:Make sure you do, absolutely, thank you. Thanks so much.
Sam Miklos:Thanks. Thanks for tuning in to it Takes Heart.
Kate Coomber:If you loved this episode, subscribe leave a review or share it with a friend, and if you know someone with a great story in healthcare, get in touch. Follow us on socials for all the behind the scenes fun, and we'll see you next time.
