I find myself some time past the locum at the Rockhampton Aboriginal Health Service and not made a blog entry.
I spent four weeks at the service in the main town centre of Rockhampton. This job has left a number of impressions so I will list them as they come to me.
1) Rockhampton is a large sprawling country city that at its heart is a series of old, historic buildings. It lay on the bank of a large (I believe tidal) river. For its promising initial appearance it is not inspiring, at least to me. It's a little lifeless. The population spreads out from Rockhampton to the north and along the river to the coast, and this is where the life seems to have been dragged kicking and screaming. The city itself is nothing of note once the pleasure of the old buildings and the river passes.
2) I have an Optus 3G telephone network subscription - the coverage in Rockhampton is pathetic. I can cross from one side of the street to the other and I lose signal. I got to lunch in the local pub and once inside the signal drops out. Even 2G sometimes vanishes, so I am without a telephone signal at all.
3) I was accommodated in a house out of town, not within walking distance of work or shops. Had its advantages and disadvantages, but a 10 minute drive to work was not to be complained about.
4) The staff of the service were wonderful people, many of an aboriginal background, some not. The CEO was off on maternity leave, so never got to meet her. The clinic had undergone some major staff changes, including the departure of all the clinic doctors and the clinic nurse. I arrived as a locum with the place in transition,, doing much of the work of what would have been done by a full time clinic nurse, if there had been one. The second two weeks, a new nurse arrived and it was a joy to see her enthusiastic about taking over the role and being involved in the day to day management of the clinical services.
5) A mixture of electronic and paper records does not work well. The handling of correspondence inwards, recall and followup is hard to implement with such a system.
Would I work there again? Possibly, but a clinic in the middle of a larger town is not personally attractive to me - I left that behind in Melbourne.
Would I recommend it for an experienced GP for the experience of working in a supportive aboriginal health team? definitely.
