Educational Background
" I can honestly say that I had wanted to be a doctor as long as I can remember. The only thing I toyed with as well as medicine was teaching, although being a doctor was always my dream. I love communicating with people and, as I see it, that s what being a doctor is all about.

In my third year of medicine I developed a serious illness which required too much medical intervention, so the following year I went traveling around the world. The freedom and independence was marvellous and my illness did help me start to see things in a different light. I became more interested in alternative ways of practicing medicine, or at least more open to them."

Fiona graduated in medicine from the University of Sydney in 1987. She attained Fellowship of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners in 1994.

She is currently doing a Masters of Medical Education through the University of Sydney.

Training
" The good thing about internship and residency for me was that I was able to tick and cross the things I found interesting and the things I didn t. For example, I didn t like intensive care  I don t like dealing with that much adrenalin every day. When it s peoples  lives just teetering on the brink, and it s up to me to bring them back, I struggle with that.

The term I most loved in my internship was palliative care  the antithesis of intensive care! I absolutely loved it, even though initially I wasn t looking forward to it. I discovered how fantastic it is to help dying people and their families - and that there can be good ways of dying. I knew deep down, though, that I would find working there permanently too depressing.

I thought seriously about doing Obstetrics and Gynaecology until I became pregnant myself. You need a support team around you if you re doing that job  not being the support person yourself.

I m glad I made the decision to become a GP, and very grateful of the flexibility it s given me  and I continue to love working with pregnant women. I still cry at deliveries and am still overcome by the miracle of the process. So my general practice became very focused on women s and children s health. And that s why I still run the shared antenatal care program at the Royal North Shore Hospital  it s my one bit of clinical work. Lay some hands on some beautiful bellies and feel those little wrigglers in there!

I went through the GP training program when it was still called the Family Medicine Program. The variety of practices in which I worked, as well as my rural term, made me appreciate the diversity and opportunity general practice offers."

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General Practice
" One of the best things about general practice is that you can pursue the things that interest you. The group practice where I worked at Crows Nest was fantastic because all the doctors had special interests within medicine, so among us we covered nearly everything. My personal practice became focused primarily down a counseling and psychological medicine line and a women s and children s line. Plus I had 15 patients at a nursing home that were my responsibility  and I saw them every week.

The thing I ve missed about general practice since I stopped three years ago is the contact and relationship with people. It s not curing them, it s not diagnosing that tonsillitis or that gall bladder problem  it s the relationship you build up with them over time."

Fiona worked as a GP in Crows Nest for eight years, leaving when she started work at SIGPET in 2002.

Her ties with general practice remain, however, through several other continuing commitments. She has been Head of the Department of General Practice at Royal North Shore Hospital (RNSH) since 1997, and Co-ordinator of its Shared Antenatal Care Program since 1999.

RNSH liaises with the general practice population over many issues and initiatives, and Fiona is well equipped to understand the needs of both patients and GPs. One of her main preoccupations is to ensure that patients  discharges from hospital are carefully planned and communicated so that there is continuity of care and a proper safety net for patients as well as GPs.

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Medical Education
" Two of the people who worked with me in the Crows Nest practice, Jill Gordon and John Fisher, ran the GP training program for Sydney. It was a very supportive, very teaching oriented practice right from the beginning. In a sense, they were both my models and mentors."

Fiona has been involved with medical education since 1994, when she began working for the RACGP Training Program. She also co-ordinated the Junior Medical Officer Tutorial Program at RNSH between 1994 and1996; has visited schools as a lecturer in Drug and Alcohol and Sex Education since 1996; and has been a Graduate Medical Examiner for the University of Sydney since 2001.

Fiona has worked as a medical educator with SIGPET since 2002. Her extensive experience with the RNHS makes her the natural hospital liaison person within the team.

GP Registrars
" I believe in medicine, but particularly in general practice, you have to be good with people. You spend so much of your time trying to understand their problems and their lifestyles, because of the impact this has on their health.. Each doctor is different, and each must explore their strengths and weaknesses so that they can eventually find the zone in which they feel comfortable."

SIGPET
"Because of the geographical, socioeconomic, and cultural diversity with the SIGPET area, there is also a huge variety of teaching practices that our registrars can benefit from throughout their training. With a committed group of supervisors delivering practice-based teaching and a formal education program run by SIGPET, our registrars have a unique opportunity to experience the wonders of General Practice."

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