The Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners

Calling for DRHMNZ or RNZCGP Fellows

The Division of RHM has been working with the Ministry of Health in the Cook Islands over the past year and is in the process of setting up a training post at Rarotonga Hospital.

Leading up to this we are working to organise a roster of fellows of RHMNZ to spend 4-6 weeks successively in the Cooks in 2012 

The idea of sending Fellows prior to registrars is based on:

• A chance to experience some rural/remote medicine  for ourselves
• To get some of our doctors on the ground over there to see the kind of things our registrars may come up against and work these through with the local staff.
• A service component: providing an experienced  generalist doctor  to the health service there , which will free up the local doctors to take some time out/do some CME/ get some systems and processes up and running

We still have a gap for 1 month mid April to mid May, as well as November /December.

We would love to hear from any RHM fellow or RNZCGP fellow who is interested and for whom these dates fit. This may also suit a GPEP2 registrar.

 The work can be either generalist rural hospital, or general practice in the community clinic or (ideally), a mixture of both.

There is also the opportunity to work in clinics on one of the outer islands.

(NB: There is 24/7 back up for surgery anaesthetics and obstetrics at Rarotonga Hospital.)

Whilst this is not salaried work, your return airfares, accommodation and transport in the Cooks will be covered.  You may have the ability to tap into CME/annual leave / sabbatical leave time for this.

This is a chance to become part of the community in an incredible part of the world, an opportunity to work with Pacific colleagues in an environment where clinical acumen and skills are weighted over investigation. The range and variety of patient presentation means there is a seriously good opportunity to advance your clinical skills.  Recognised side effects include fishing, surfing, boating, snorkelling, whale watching, eating delicious food, great friends and return visits.

If you are interested or would like more information please contact DRHM Administrator Helene Keating on helene.keating@rnzcgp.org.nz