Health Kick, the weekly radio show on Gove FM 106.9 is hosted by none other than Flinders medical students Max Deighton and Tom Pyke along with their radio sidekick, hospital resident medical officer Dr Frayne Gomez.
The show was born out of Frayne’s passion for radio and the lure of talking sport mixed with medicine. Once a week the three entertain the good citizens of Nhulunbuy with their light banter while discussing some serious topics.
Based on a show Frayne presented as a medical student about five years ago in Ballarat on Community Radio, the three hope to help influence people in a positive way. The three love their sport and have combined this love with their other love, medicine. “So the name Health Kick works well,” said Frayne.
The program focuses on educating people about health. Max, Tom and Frayne choose one topic each week, usually from the list of common conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, alcohol consumption, smoking and obesity. As Tom and Max say, ”It is a fantastic way for us to review the conditions and to translate our knowledge in a plain English way. It is really good practice for talking to patients.” Even if the Gove FM listener doesn’t have the condition they more than likely have a family member or a friend who does and can benefit from some knowledge.
“We are about promoting common medical knowledge and good health,” they said.
When Frayne first came to Gove he contacted local community hero and radio manager Rob Stewart and floated the program idea. Rob jumped at it. Frayne then suggested to Tom and Max that he had a great way for them to spend some of the twenty weeks of their Nhulunbuy placement. Along with AFL football training with the Djarrak team at Yirrkala, morning gym sessions, fishing, the hours of weekend study and digesting tuna and rice, what was one more extra-curricula activity?
Max Deighton said, “We try to talk about local sport such as last week’s Women’s Fishing Competition and the NTFL’s finals. We add in some national sport like the AFL, ARU and Surfing and we have even commentated one session of the second cricket test in South Africa. For someone who knows nothing about cricket, it was pretty interesting…”
“We like to promote the idea of ‘keep playing, it is healthy’. As part of that concept we interview local Gove AFL team coaches,” said Tom Pyke. “The other really fun bit to the program is the music. This week we talked about diet. We played Salt & Pepper and John Farnham’s Pressure Down. Corny maybe, but a bit of fun.”
“We stick to Australian music and love to promote some of the great music from this region like Baker Boy, the rapper from Milingimbi. The Gove Peninsula has a strong musical heritage as it is the home of the famous Yothu Yindi Band. We also play Barra West Wind, great live at the Arnhem Club by the way, Garrangali Band are a well loved East Arnhem Land band from the homeland community of Baniyala, East Journey a Yirrkala band, Yirrmal plus other Indigenous artists like A.B. Original.” A.B.Original are an Australian hip hop duo made up of Briggs and Trials. Both members are Indigenous Australians; Briggs is a Yorta Yorta man and Trials is Ngarrindjeri.
Tom finished by saying, “Our weekly music selection includes other Australian artists like Dan Sultan and not one week goes by, without a salute to my home town of Brisbane, by playing a Powderfinger song.”
So, if you are keen to have a bit of a laugh and to find out what is happening with the Flinders medical students on the Gove peninsula, to get some health tips, listen to some good Australian music and to hear about sport, click on the Gove FM 106.9 livestream link at 5 pm each Tuesday – Health Kicks hosted by Dr Frayne Gomez, Tom Pyke and Max Deighton.
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Studying medicine with Flinders
Medical Placements in the Northern Territory – Email: Central Australia | Top End