This Friday, twenty students based at The University of Queensland Rural Clinical School (UQRCS), Rockhampton Regional Clinical Unit will graduate with a Doctor of Medicine (MD).
After completing their fourth and final year of post-graduate study in Rockhampton, the graduates will enjoy a well-earned break before heading off to their places of internship for 2023.
Graduating student Aiden Galvin will be starting on the Rural Generalist pathway when he commences his internship at Rockhampton Hospital next year.
Having grown up in rural and remote areas, Aiden has spent the last two years living and studying in Rockhampton and he will stay on in Rockhampton next year as part of his plan to live and work in regional Queensland.
“The people in regional areas and the feeling of community are just something which you can't get in the cities, and the human interaction is one of the key aspects of medicine which I feel can be diminished in metro areas,” Aiden said.
“By training as a Rural Generalist I will be setting myself up to have the skills to work in regional Queensland, providing both GP and specialist services to communities which may otherwise not have access to these services locally.
“Studying at the UQRCS has supported me immensely through the clinical years of the medical program, with amazing support from the team here and extremely high-quality training provided by the local health services where I have spent time here in Rockhampton and in Emerald,” he said.
Director of UQRCS, Associate Professor Riitta Partanen said that the common themes among RCS students is that spending time living and studying in a regional area has given them a deep appreciation of the challenges in regional medicine and even inspired many to pursue careers in regional, rural and remote locations.
“This year marked 20 years of the UQRCS, and we celebrate our 1,638 graduates who have studied with us for at least one year, over the past 20 years, in one of our four locations of Toowoomba, Hervey Bay, Bundaberg and Rockhampton,” Associate Professor Partanen said.
“Congratulations to our graduating students; you should be incredibly proud of your efforts, and we know that collectively you will go on to impact the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.
“We are immensely proud to be part of the start of your journey into medicine,” she said.
For further information on studying medicine in Central Queensland, please visit rcs.medicine.uq.edu.au or follow us on Facebook.
