So where is Derby, Western Australia?
2391 Kilometres (about 1600 miles) North of Perth, only 13 degrees South of the Equator. (Its closer to Bali than to Perth!)

And how did we end up going to the "back of beyond"? Its a simple story. An Australian physician had worked in Winton, New Zealand a year or two before my stint there. We both knew the local practice nurse, Dawn. I had emailed Dawn that I had a job offer for Queensland, and she passed on that I was interested in Australia to Professor Murdoch. A few more emails ensued, I mentioned that a warm beach would be attractive and the good professor sent me the following pictures:

A week later I received the following description of my post from Dr. David Atkinson, who is the regional coordinator for the Rural Clinical School of the University of Western Australia and University of Notre Dame.

"Hi Chuck

I am the medical coordinator for the Rural Clinical School in Broome and have responsibility for Derby as well. Apart from the Rural Clinical School I work for the Kimberley Aboriginal Medical Services Council (KAMSC a cooperative of Aboriginal community controlled health services in the Kimberley - member services are in Broome, Derby, Gibb River Road communities, Halls Creek, Balgo, Kununurra and a range of remote communities associated with these services). See our website http://kamsc.org.au/

The Derby Aboriginal Health Service (DAHS) is a great place to work and our premier service in spacious new facilities. Derby is a small friendly town (around 4000 people serving with another 4000 or so people scattered across a large surrounding area). Derby is a service centre and base for tourist visits on the Gibb River Road, with easy access to some of the Kimberley's great wilderness areas from late April onwards, after the wet season. Derby has a large jetty into King Sound but no nearby beach, some of the largest tides in the world (second to Nova Scotia I think) and has usual small town facilities, swimming pool, library etc. There is what has been the regional hospital with some speicalists based there and others visiting, that is mainly a Government employed procedural GP run. Everything is air-conditioned because weather is hot &/or wet and humid until mid April and then becomes what I consider to be the best weather in the world - dry, warm and sunny in the day with cool nights for about 6 months before slowly warming up again in October/November. Only 2 hours drive from Broome which is a town of around 15000, popular tourist destination, beaches, cafe's restaurants etc and better facilities than you might expect in a town this size - I have lived here for 3.5 years and intend to stay. Derby people dislike being described as 2 hours from Broome, since they think Derby is better (even the students based in Derby last year supported this view, although they also came down to Broome reasonably often for their fix of western decadence)!

A reasonable plan would be for you to work half time for the Rural Clinical School and half time for DAHS. Currently no on call (while there may be a change at some stage, if there was any on call it would not be onerous). Involves the opportuinity to fly or drive to Aboriginal communities for day clinics (2-3 trips from DAHS per week to 8 different communities, 6 in the Gibb River Road area visited by air and 2 by road - usually shared by all DAHS doctors so no more than one per week) with 50-130 people in each community visited between once a week and once a month) with the main task being to provide a primary care service at the DAHS clinic supported by Aboriginal health workers and nurses. DAHS ideally has 3 to 4 doctors plus with any luck a GP registrar (trainee family physician), they have consistently had one trainee at DAHS over the past few years and would expect to get takers next year.

We plan to run an integrated program for up to 12 students in the region next year - some based mainly in Derby (3 or 4) and the rest based mainly in Broome but with regular interaction between Derby and Broome students and also visits to other towns in the region. Most of the students are 22-23 years old with a smaller number of older students. Students arrive in the Kimberley in late January and leave early November, so if you could start in early Jan straight after New Year you could start to get used to the tropical wet season.

For an alternative look at RCS, from the students point of view, you can check out this video that medical students in Broome posted on YouTube for their end-of-year report.

So now you know what I know about where we are going. Oh, and you can check it out more on the web (if you are really interested), at http://www.derbytourism.com.au/