My name is Oscar Power, and I am a medical student at ANU, entering my third year in 2026. I am part of the long-term rural program and am very excited to be living in Bega next year. Firstly, I want to thank you for the opportunity to apply for the Australian Rotary Rural Health Scholarship, and all individuals involved in the administration and management of this program. This scholarship is an incredible initiative that I know will significantly help myself or other students in several ways. I have always admired the work of the Rotary organisation and am excited about the opportunity to connect further with the community and its members.

Many factors led to me choosing to apply for the rural stream. One of the most important factors to me was for my education. The rural stream is highly regarded for providing students with great clinical exposure and experience, and this is something I value significantly. I am also very eager to live rurally next year, and I plan to long term. I grew up rurally and loved every aspect of living in a small country town, with a strong sense of community. I am excited to feel this sense of community again when I live in Bega, and plan to involve myself as much as I can. I am especially looking forward to joining the local footy team, volunteering, and heading down to the beautiful Sapphire Coast to fish or surf.

I am however aware that next year will come with its challenges. Third year is regarded by many ANU students as the most difficult of the degree, with a big adjustment to placements and a heavy workload. I expect this to be more so in the rural stream, with isolation from Canberra students and longer travel times playing a part. I believe having to balance the challenges of third year with the already present financial pressures of studying medicine will be difficult. I currently work part time and am concerned that this will take more essential time away from my studies in third year.

While I will endeavour to find a balance between working to support myself and finding time to study on top of placement, the opportunity to have additional financial support is very enticing. I will be able to use the time I would otherwise spend working to further dedicate myself to studying or involving myself further with the community – overall maximising my rural experience.

Thus, I believe The Rotary scholarship would help ease the financial pressure of studying medicine, and further provide me with the best possible practical experience while I complete my rural year. Overall, this will contribute to improving my skills in rural and general medicine and allow me to provide the best care I can to the community both as a student, and as a future rural doctor. Furthermore, I will have more opportunity to involve myself in the community, with the footy club and Rotary activities.

Placement

So far in Bega I have done rotations in the general medicine, the emergency department, paediatrics, and am currently in Pambula medical practice for my general practice rotation.

Starting placement this year was both exciting and quite daunting. My main fear was that I was going to have forgotten everything I had learnt in the past two pre-clinical years. I also wasn’t sure what to expect from the doctors, whether they would be friendly, scary, or what their expectations were of me, so it was quite nerve racking. I quickly found the doctors in Bega to be incredible friendly, patient, and eager to teach me and get me involved. This year has been a big step up in med school, and the most demanding year of my life, balancing placement, study and a range of other things. Despite how demanding it has been, it has been one of the best years of my life, as I feel like I am learning so much every single day, as well as finally getting exposure in a hospital setting, seeing what it is like to be a doctor. I have finally been able to put all the study and clinical skills to practice in the real setting, with real doctors and patients. On placement I have had incredible opportunities to work on my independency, and as part of multiple different teams in different disciplines, which has been incredible for my development of confidence, clinical skills and knowledge, as well as understanding of how different medical disciplines all work together. Starting placement has been incredible, and there have honestly been so many nights this year where I have gone to bed so happy and grateful to be in this position and excited for what the future holds. This year has made me all the more certain that I am in the right career path, and I honestly cannot see myself doing anything else now.

Tennant Creek

I was lucky enough to have a six-week rotation in the Northern Territory in Tennant Creek with Maddy Fisk another student. This was one of the most incredible experiences of my life. From a medical student lens it was an incredible learning opportunity; all the doctors were incredible teachers and made efforts to get us involved in so much. It was also a very eye opening, and at times confronting experience. So many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with such advanced chronic diseases, such as end stage renal failure, advanced heart failure, diabetes, and diseases that really just don’t exist in the rest of Australia or the western world, such as rheumatic heart disease. The worst part was, all these patients were so young for how poor their health was, most of them in their forties and fifties, all much younger than my parents but with the health complications and comorbidities you would expect in a 80–90-year-old elsewhere. Presentations to the emergency department were also very different to what I was used to in Bega. Many presentations due to domestic violence, stabbings, severe infections, and very delayed presentations. This experience also greatly improved my understanding of the social determinants of health, seeing first-hand how people live and the lack of resources and facilities they have access to, made it all the more clear why there is such a high prevalence of chronic diseases, why they are managed so poorly, and why infectious skin diseases that are almost unheard of in the rest of Australia, spread through children like wildfire.

We took every opportunity to immerse ourselves in Indigenous culture, which in Tennant Creek seemed difficult as there seemed to be quite a strong degree of segregation. However, we were able to get involved in NAIDOC week, visited the cultural centre a few times, the linguistics centre, both art galleries, and on our last night were given a dot painting lesson by one of the Aboriginal liaison officers from the hospital. I also trained with one of the local AFL teams weekly and was able to meet a number of local guys my age.

Tennant Creek was an incredible life experience that I have no doubt will make me a better doctor and person and has given me an incredible sense of appreciation for the life I have. I would very much like to work there again in my career.

Bega

My family and I used to drive up to Tathra from Kyneton down in Victoria, during our summer to join all our cousins for a few weeks of holidays when we were kids, so the prospect of moving here for a whole year was very exciting. I was keen to make the most of rural living, and living near the coast, so set myself a few goals for the year. One was to make the most of the opportunity to fish along this coastline as much as I could. I have always been keen on fishing but in the last number of years have rarely done any. This year we have really made the most of it down here, and have been out catching plenty of Salmon, Flathead and Bonito. I have also been getting into spearfishing, which was another goal, after my friends gifted me a speargun for my birthday. We have gone for a few successful dives around Wallagoot beach and boulder bay. Safe to say in this house we have had our fair share of seafood dinners, with Abalone pastas, fish tacos, grilled fish and barbequed Octopus.

Moving down here I was also keen to join the local AFL team. I’ve played AFL all my life, but had the last couple of seasons off, so was very eager to get back into it down here to make some local friends and really try to get involved in the community. I joined the Bega-Tathra Kangaroos back in preseason and have loved every minute of being a part of that club, making lifelong friendships and feeling like a genuine part of the community. The club had been struggling for several years, but this year was looking more promising from the get-go in preseason. We had a slow start to the year, losing out first six games but being right in each contest. Finally, things clicked and we went on a roll. At the time of writing this, we just beat Bermagui in the first final on the weekend and are into the preliminary final next weekend! The only goal I am yet to tick off this year is learning how to surf, but not for a lack of trying. Still, plenty of time!

I have loved my time in Bega and will be very sad to leave at years end. I have already organised to do as much of my fourth year here as I can, which unfortunately is only 5 weeks (which I have specially requested to be during the AFL season). The hospital has been amazing, the facilities, experience and teaching there is incredible, and the lifestyle in Bega has been amazing. I always thought there was no way the med school could convince students to live rurally off one year in a random town, but I can say it absolutely works. It feels like home down here and I can absolutely see myself settling down here one day.