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Seeing as everyone else was showing of their newspaper articles we thought we would join in and show you our FRONTPAGE Article. Thats right FRONTPAGE. Now before you say Derby must suck because they put us on the FRONTPAGE, it doesn't we are just super cool. And when your super cool in a town thats so hot you are a FRONTPAGE news item.

Derby Lads Signing Off.

Medical Students To Spend a Year in Derby

Three medical students from the University of Western Australia have arrived in Derby to begin working at the Regional Hospital and Derby Aboriginal Health Services (DAHS). Fifth-year medical students Owen Milne, Michael Patton, and James Stacey will spend 2007 building their clinical skills as part of the University’s Rural Clinical School (RCS).

Dr. Charles Zelnick, their Site Coordinator is also newly arrived in Derby. He will work half-time as a consulting doctor at DAHS in addition to supervising the new students. Dr. Zelnick arrived in Derby two weeks before the students. One of those weeks was spent in Kalgoorlie where he and the 62 students in the RCS underwent Orientation, including a mock disaster exercise which involved retrieving car crash and plane crash “victims”.

The Rural Clinical School is funded as part of the Governments $830 million Rural Health Strategy. The aim of the School is to get students out of the city for a large portion of their training, in hopes they learn the attractions of country practice, and reduce the shortage of rural doctors. Derby students will spend time on the hospital wards in Paediatrics, Maternity and Women’s Health, as well as General Practice. They will see patients with local doctors both in the hospital and at DAHS. A strong focus of their training will be to work with Aboriginal Health Workers and get out into the community to learn about resources they may use to help local people. The Derby students will participate in teleconferences from Perth, and will have some joint workshops with their 8 fellow RCS students who are based in Broome.

The three young men all grew up in the Perth area, but have been keen to come to the Kimberly to broaden their experience. Their supervisor, Dr. Zelnick, is from the United States, where he worked as a country doctor for ten years in rural Washington State. “It was a small town of 3000 people, mostly farmers.” he said. “But the surrounding hills were covered with sagebrush, and we often heard coyotes howling at night.” Zelnick spent the last 14 years teaching postgraduate doctors and medical students in Cedar Rapids in the state of Iowa. After working a 6 month sabbatical in Winton, New Zealand in 2004, he was recruited to work in Derby by the Head of the RCS, Professor Murdoch, who had also worked in Winton. He is accompanied by his wife, Vicki.

“Everyone in Derby has been so welcoming and friendly”, Zelnick said. “We are sure the students will have a great experience here, and hope some will eventually return to settle in the Kimberly.”