Desperately Seeking Doctors (ATOM Study Guide)

For the residents and councils of many rural Australian communities, maintaining a reliable health care service is a constant challenge. Despite extensive domestic and international recruitment campaigns, doctors are leaving some rural communities faster than they can be replaced.

Desperately Seeking Doctors is a three-part documentary series about this chronic shortage of doctors in rural Australia. Country towns across Australia, desperate for a General Practitioner and specialists, are recruiting doctors from as far away as India, South Africa and the United Kingdom. Overseas trained doctors have now become commonplace but how do these doctors cope once theyve arrived in the middle of nowhere? And, just as importantly, how do the locals cope with them? This series follow the journeys of several doctors who have come to work in remote parts of Western Australia where the doctor shortage is particularly acute. Will they stay and how will they cope with the demands of the job and the isolation?