The newest member of the Guyra Medical Centre, Dr Laura Townsend, will start work on Monday.
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She returns to the country after city life, and is looking forward to the variety of rural medicine and to getting to know the community.
Dr Townsend will join the centre as a general practice registrar, a speciality training position for qualified doctors.
"Just as some doctors choose to go into cardiology, skin, or surgery," she explained, "general practice is a speciality as well. It deals with family life. From newborns to death, we deal with everything in between."
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Dr Townsend grew up in Uralla, then studied medicine at the University of New South Wales, Sydney. For the last couple of years, she has worked in Tamworth and Armidale hospitals, most recently six months in Armidale's emergency unit. She moves to Guyra with her partner and children.
"I'm getting used to the spectrum of family practice," Dr Townsend said, "but I quite like spending time with the elderly, and I'm interested in palliative care, caring for people and their families at the end of life. Those conversations don't faze me, either."
Dr Townsend will be supervised by Dr Thampapillai Jeyakumar ("Dr Jey"), also mentoring fellow registrar Dr Anitha Jandrajupalli, who joined in February from the Royal Melbourne Hospital.
The two doctors will be able to work and study together, practice manager Indrani Jeyakumar said.
"The Guyra Medical Centre is a comfortable and flexible working environment," Dr Jandrajupalli said. Working with Dr Jeyakumar, she can see a wide variety of patients.
She worked for two and a half years in Indian rural hospitals, then for six and a half years in Melbourne. She is experienced in emergency training, general medicine, aged care, women's health, and mental health, and is completing her diploma in paediatrics.
The community accepted her as a family member, and her children go to local schools.
Both doctors chose Guyra Medical Practice because of Dr Jeyakumar's reputation as a supervisor; several registrars he trained now lead successful careers.
"It's almost better to see a registrar," Dr Townsend said, "because then you get the registrar's opinion. If they don't quite understand, or know what's going on, we've got easy access to the supervisor, so you get two heads working on the same problem."
Being attached to the Guyra Multi Purpose Service Hospital, Dr Townsend believes, will provide experience of both normal GP duties and medical emergencies.
Anything that ends up at a specialist has to go through a general practitioner first, Dr Townsend explained.
"You see everything from a simple cut and graze you can deal with yourself, to major surgery," she said. "It's a broad spectrum of experience."
In the cities, junior doctors often get relegated to paperwork - but rural doctors get more hands-on experience, and to see rare conditions.
"For someone in training," Dr Townsend said, "it's an excellent opportunity that you don't get in the city - even in a small Armidale practice."
The Guyra Medical Centre also plans to bulk-bill farmers and others affected by the drought.