{"id":29953,"date":"2025-12-29T09:28:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-29T01:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/?post_type=oasis-news&p=29953"},"modified":"2025-12-15T14:32:54","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T06:32:54","slug":"how-one-rural-placement-changed-the-game","status":"publish","type":"oasis-news","link":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/oasis-news\/how-one-rural-placement-changed-the-game\/","title":{"rendered":"How one rural placement changed the game for Jack\u2019s clinical knowledge.\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

After swearing he\u2019d never study medicine, Jack found himself falling in love with it. And for his final year of Med, it\u2019s even taken him rural. | Reading Time: 3 minutes.<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Think a rural placement means being isolated from your friends back in Perth? For fourth-year Med student Jack, a Rural Clinical School (RCS) placement in Kalgoorlie has filled his final year with fast friendships and weekend rodeos. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Living rurally brings a different pace to city life, and one that Jack says\u00a0he\u2019s\u00a0been waiting to get back to. Growing up in mining towns across Australia, Jack jumped at the chance to head out\u00a0to Kalgoorlie\u00a0for a rural placement with RCS.\u00a0What attracted him to the opportunity was simple: a chance to explore the Goldfields and connect with a group of friends\u00a0doing similar activities with similar schedules for an entire year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Medicine wasn\u2019t always the goal for Jack; in fact, he graduated high school thinking, anything but! But after testing out different careers during a gap year, Jack found himself falling in love with the hospital lifestyle and patient care. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deciding on his career path with intention strengthened Jack\u2019s drive to push through the intense coursework of medicine. But the easiest way Jack\u2019s stayed motivated? Knowing that he\u2019s not studying for just himself, but for the patients he\u2019ll see in the future. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne day, you might get caught out in the middle of nowhere on a random placement and a patient walks in with the one-in-a-million condition. If you have\u00a0a rough idea\u00a0of where to look for the resources for it,\u00a0it’ll\u00a0make a difference in someone’s life.\u201d\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Jack\u2019s days during placement are normally split between ward work at Kalgoorlie Regional Hospital and teaching sessions at the RCS, where the learning environment feels much more informal than in Perth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll be sitting on a couch or beanbags together and if you throw a joke at the tutor, he\u2019ll throw them right back. It means you can ask any question you want, relevant or not, to really round out that knowledge base.\u201d<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What has made his rural placement really stand out is access to meaningful clinical experience. Compared to a metro placement where Jack’s friends are one of two students in a team of 37 on the ward, the staff teams in Kalgoorlie are small enough to make real connections with consultants and patients alike. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHere,\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0one of two students on a team of six.\u00a0You\u2019ll\u00a0be walking around the\u00a0ward,\u00a0and a clinician will pull you over on a name basis. \u2018Jack, come on over, how\u2019s your weekend, come see this patient and I\u2019ll teach you about a condition.\u2019\u201d<\/em>\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And since Kalgoorlie is such a small town, it\u2019s not uncommon to walk around town and bump into consultants or go to events with the entire Emergency Department nursing team as mates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen you rock up back to work on Monday, it’s more professional,” <\/em>Jack says. “But everyone’s definitely a mate first and a work colleague second.\u201d<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are you a Health Sciences student planning your final year placement? Jack\u2019s final piece of advice for you is to go rural \u2013 no hesitations. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI’ve\u00a0done so many things this year that I\u00a0couldn’t\u00a0even dream of. If you want hands-on experience, personalised learning, or to know more senior clinicians who can help you out with medical and non-medical things, go rural!\u201d<\/em>\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After swearing\u00a0he\u2019d\u00a0never study medicine, Jack found himself falling in love with it. And for his final year of Med,\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0even taken him rural. | Reading Time: 3 minutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4478,"featured_media":29954,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"4666,8094,7583,7429,6604,7647","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","wds_primary_oasis-categories":0,"footnotes":""},"oasis-categories":[134,250],"class_list":["post-29953","oasis-news","type-oasis-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","oasis-categories-health-sciences","oasis-categories-student-profile"],"acf":{"post_options":{"":null,"banner":{"image":false}}},"featured_image":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Jack-Tonkin-oasis-profile-1000x500.jpg","author_meta":{"first_name":"Christina","last_name":"Ryan","display_name":"Christina Ryan"},"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-24 23:27:33","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"oasis-categories","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/oasis-news\/29953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/oasis-news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/oasis-news"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/oasis-news\/29953\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"oasis-categories","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/oasis-categories?post=29953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}