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Mt Gambier’s rural surgical team lead by example for change
Associate Professor Matthias Wichmann
Dr Matt Watson
One-third of Australians live in rural areas and don’t get the same access to healthcare as those in the cities. Australia is spread across wide rural, regional and remote areas, as well as coastal cities, and we are struggling to attract enough surgeons to rural healthcare. Change must happen at a structural level to train, recruit and retain enough surgeons in rural areas so that all Australians can access high quality surgical services close to home.
Advisory Group (which provides advice to the Steering Committee) and are based in Mt Gambier, South Australia. The Surgical News team talked to them about their rural experiences, how they’ve been successful, and how this has informed their recommendations for RACS rural health plans. Associate Professor Wichmann, a general surgeon with a long list of special interests including colorectal and emergency surgery, came to Australia from Germany 15 years ago. As a Specialist International Medical Graduate (SIMG), he was required to settle in a rural area of need, so he had little choice in the dramatic leap from a busy Munich university hospital to Mt Gambier, where his small hospital cares for a town of 25,000 people, with no line up of specialists on hand when the going gets tough. He says he learned to make phone calls for advice, and relied on the internet, books and his training to solve problems because there was no one else. Despite its challenges, the rural life quickly grew on him. “I’d never do anything else now,” he admits. His family have a spacious home and he can be present for his three kids. The surgery is always varied and interesting. He thrives on the continuity of care and a strong sense that he’s contributing meaningfully to the community. “I see the patient before, during and after surgery. It’s much more of a doctor’s life than a specialist’s life, while still being able to do reasonably major surgery within the areas of my special interest.”
In response to this urgent need for change, the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS) established the Rural Health Equity Steering Committee to deliver the Rural Health Equity Strategy to remedy surgical challenges in remote and regional areas of Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand. Associate Professor Matthias Wichmann, a general surgeon, and Dr Matt Watson, a SET Trainee, are both members of the Rural Health Equity
Dr Watson is a SET Trainee training to be a general surgeon. He says his own rural upbringing on a sheep station, along with an inspiring rural surgical rotation as a medical student based in Whyalla, SA, have been the main drivers for his interest in becoming a rural surgeon. He received plenty of exposure to city medicine while training at the University of Adelaide, then explored rural medicine with clinical rotations in Mt Gambier, Whyalla, Port Lincoln, Ceduna and Port Augusta in SA, as well as a placement in Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada, as a medical student and then junior doctor. For Dr Watson, the broad scope of practice in rural general surgery, drawing upon skills from a variety of specialties, makes the career path very appealing, as
