Its time to tell a personal story.
I did rural medicine because of a horse called Sospel.
At the end of 1971, my final year in high school, I was conned by some mates into going to Randwick Racecourse. I put $4 – a small fortune at that time – on a horse that came in at fifty to one. With the winnings I headed bush, hay carting, shooting rabbits, mustering sheep and cattle, camping by billabongs and generally cleared my head and sorted what I really wanted to do with my life.
After six years medicine, where I admit I spent more time bushwalking, skiing, rock climbing and surfing than in lecture theatres, our rural dream was realised with hospital training to get the medical, surgical, emergency, anaesthetic and obstetrics skills required to be a rural doctor. Another five years later, arriving in the small country town of Gundagai, married to a like-minded doctor with two small children in tow, a large overdraft to purchase a practice that had seen better days, a hospital where we had to fight to use our new found skills and a system that failed to recognise the experience and responsibilities in being a cradle to the grave, on call 24/7 rural doctor.
I soon recognised that there was so much more that we could do to make it better for rural and remote communities and medicine in the bush, but that rigid systems, unresponsive politicians and bureaucrats and lets face it, metropolitan medical bigotries and jealousies, kept dragging us back.
So we fought back, not just to make it better for ourselves as doctors, but to change the system. The rest is history. Forty years in rural practice. Medical students and registrars, Rural Doctors Dispute, founding executive and subsequent RDANSW and RDAA President, rural workforce reforms, changes in rural medicine that also helped city GPs. All underpinned by the inspiration from rural and remote doctors who shared the same passion and belief in rural and remote communities.
Mindful of the bureaucracy and the petty medical politics that sought to control practice, when accreditation came into view, I personally committed to ensuring that all practices, but particularly those in rural and remote Australia would not be trapped in a professional bureaucratic maze or left behind.
Quality Practice Accreditation was thus established to give all general practices a reliable choice in accreditation providers. We specialise in general practice accreditation, but our heart is in the country. We live and work in the bush. Our office, employing over twenty local staff, is in the iconic rural town of Gundagai, New South Wales. We service metropolitan, regional, rural and remote practices across Australia. From Broome to Bondi. From Thursday Island to Tasmania.
Over the years the number of rural practices and remote Primary Health Care Centres we accredit has naturally increased, but we are still seeing rural and remote disadvantage, poor service from some providers and practices unsupported in their accreditation journey. It can be better and we want to do more.
By supporting QPA, you’re not only receiving a quality assurance, improvement and risk management program that is second to none, but also supporting our huge investment and development in a rural community, giving employment and professional opportunities to people living and working in a small country town. Many of the people we now employ, I delivered.
We understand rural and remote practice and the need to listen. Accreditation is not about finding fault but engaging with people.
Other accreditation providers can give you a certificate but we guarantee our commitment.
Join us for our upcoming introductory webinar that will show you how to navigate the rural accreditation maze and turn accreditation into a better experience for your patients and your practice.