It’s no wonder Dr Susie Keynes is now working with the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) -she was almost born on an RFDS plane when her mother had a pregnancy complication in Leigh Creek and flown to Broken Hill where she was safely delivered. Also, no stranger to the bush, growing up in Leigh Creek, Ceduna, and Port Augusta in SA, then Goulburn NSW. Her father was an Anglican Priest who loved the outback.
Dr Keynes is now a flying doctor herself and one of the first Australian doctors to receive the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners new Rural Generalist Fellowship.
Susie trained as a registered nurse in Sydney, later returning to SA and Flinders Medical Centre where she continued to work as a nurse for several years. “I worked in cardiology which I loved and really got the bug to go and study medicine – I really wanted to learn MORE!
“In the mid-nineties I was keen to enter post graduate medicine at Flinders but I was also in a band called FRUIT. We had amazing opportunities to travel and play overseas at the same time. I asked a good friend and cardiologist what he thought I should do… medicine or be a travelling musician – he asked me ‘..was I nuts?..’ ; that medicine would always be there and to embrace the music opportunities whilst they were there. I took his advice and hit the road with the band. This led to a 10-year career travelling and performing as an international musician with FRUIT. After playing our last international show in Seattle, the band decided to hang up the touring lifestyle for a while and I returned to Australia and to the question of medicine. I bit the bullet, sat the GAMSAT and entered medical training in 2010.”
“ It was the intrigue of working in cardiology that piqued my interest. As CCU nurses we worked closely with the doctors and in those days ward rounds were teaching rounds and we were all encouraged to expand our knowledge. I also worked in research and all of this drew me to learn more. I was fascinated with how the body worked and loved learning. I still do. I chose Flinders because it was close to home, offered the pathway of post graduate medicine and I could still work casual shifts as a nurse while I studied.”
With her love of cardiology, Susie thought she would eventually do physicians training and become a cardiologist after graduation – but all that changed after a taste of the country.
“In my second year of medicine I decided at the last minute (quite literally) to attend a rural medicine day in Victor Harbour, with a view to exploring the option of doing third year medicine on Kangaroo Island. My partner came to the day with me and on that day we decided to do it together. So we packed up our house and our dog and moved to KI for my 3rd year of medicine. I realised what an amazing privilege it is to be part of a community delivering medical care in the clinic, in the ED, and caring for my own admitted patients. It was the real deal – the challenge to do all of it.”
Susie graduated and in her junior doctor years she loved the obstetrics rotation and then went on to complete an Advanced Diploma of Obstetrics. She then returned to Kangaroo Island where she worked there as a GP Obstetrician for nearly three years.
“This was an amazing time of growth and challenge as I learnt to be a rural GP in all respects as well as caring for pregnant women and their babies.”
Susie’s love of the bush led her to seek experience working with the RFDS. This opportunity came up at the end of her time as a GP Registrar on KI. “I began to do a week a month with the RFDS in Port Augusta and found this work incredibly rewarding as well as reconnecting me with a deep intrigue and love of the outback and its people. This was so strong, I felt like I was walking in my father’s footsteps. It’s a remarkable place with remarkable people.”
“I am drawn to roles that deliver care to those who otherwise would have trouble accessing it. I am drawn to places and situations where the problem-solving is difficult or unusual and creativity is called for, and possible. I am encouraged by connecting with people in these places to make their health or illness journeys better supported and better informed. There’s a lot to do and I am inspired to work with a team like the RFDS to work toward better outcomes.”
In her role, Susie works across many fields, delivering primary health care through organised face-to-face and telehealth clinics to outback communities and emergency response care for those requiring retrieval or urgent care. “ I also oversee the delivery of obstetric care to our outback women who are pregnant which at times is quite complex. Working within a team and alongside nurses, midwives, pilots and allied health care practitioners is an absolute privilege. Solving unusual and complex problems often in urgent situations is also a highlight. As a Rural Generalist with RFDS, managing tricky scenarios and attending primary retrievals is incredibly rewarding. We often need to recruit the local people to give a helping hand, advise them how to look after quite sick patients until we get there, ride in the back of a ute with a stretchered patient to get them to the aircraft along dusty bumpy tracks with the local jackaroo holding onto the IV bag… its intriguing.”
Everyone needs downtime and in Susie’s busy life, balancing work and home is an ongoing challenge. She loves to bushwalk, spend time in nature, visit the beach, run, cycle and still plays music. “I find balancing work, life and family a challenge as a doctor and it requires a curious mind to keep exploring options to make all of these things work. I am improving though by finding interesting working styles – there are many options and working models for rural generalists and this is exciting for the future generations who do want flexibility.”
“This is my third career in this life and my younger self had the courage to take risks and go to places and make choices that presented challenges. I feel like I have always moved toward challenging things. It’s brought with it much more in rewards and no regrets. I do need to keep telling my older self to keep going and keep moving toward the scary edges because we become more risk-averse as we get older. Rural Generalism requires you to keep expanding your clinical comfort zones and that can at times be confronting.”
Dr Keynes believes that with exposure to rural environments, medical students who take rural clinical placements will learn so much, and grow, not only their medical knowledge and clinical skills, but as people.
“Take those chances to go to under resourced areas because they are as fascinating as they are challenging and they grow great doctors. Apart from that, our country really needs this!
Sign up for medicine for the right reasons. It’s a challenging career and NEVER boring – you need to truly like people and want to engage with them because when you hit those stressed and tired points you still need to reach into and find your compassionate self to deliver the best care and put your patient first.”
Join the next generation of rural health professionals through Flinders’ undergraduate and postgraduate programs.