Podcast

Welcome to the Rural Road to Health Podcast!

Here we will travel along the rural road to health through conversations with students, clinicians, researchers, policy makers, advocates; people that live and work in rural areas around the world. Through these conversations we will try to gain insights into the current state of affairs in rural health globally and explore ideas that could help us move towards better access to health services for all communities.

Dr Wiktor Szczudlinski – Rural Scotland and Health Tech – Rural Road to Health

Dr Wiktor Szczudlinski is a general practitioner who qualified in Poland and is now working in Scotland. He shares his experience of working as a rural GP, why he decided to leave rural practice, and how he has gotten more involved in health tech and consulting with health tech start-ups. Episodes summary: 00.40 Dr Szczudlinski talks about his experience moving from Poland to rural Scotland 03.35 What were the challenges while working in rural Scotland? 05.30 Who were the members of the wider healthcare team? 08.30 Were there any specific challenges to caring for the local community? 10.15 How was the work different in the summer compared to the winter? 11.30 How would you compare rural and urban practice? 15.30 What factors influenced his decision to move to a more urban area? 18.30 Why did he decide to become more involved in health tech and entrepreneurship? 22.00 What has he learned about health tech? How can digital solutions be implemented in rural areas? 35.50 Top tips for people thinking about a rural health career Key messages: Mixture of work as a rural GP – usual GP clinic, out of hours/urgent care, and working in a small local hospital. Support via telemedicine with a larger hospital center and good connections with emergency retrieval services. The job provides a lot of variety, you are well supported and feel part of a team. Local community works in professions where there can be serious injuries. People can present late with symptoms as they often try to carry on, this can lead to more advanced No additional staffing in the summer despite an influx of tourists. Workload is different in urban vs rural – people assume that the workload will be less in rural areas, this is not the case, distances make a difference, it can take a long time to do a home visit. There can be a lack of infrastructure such as mobile network access, this can make it challenging to call for help in an emergency and it can take longer for help to arrive. Fewer resources are available in rural areas. The assumption that it is less busy in rural medicine is not the case, the number of the tasks may be lower but the time needed for those tasks is longer. You need to be more confident in your skills and go outside your comfort zone, there is a big element of urgent and emergency care. You need to be prepared – anything could happen. Family factors played into the decision to leave rural practice and move to a more urban area. Housing is a big problem in rural Scotland. When AI started becoming more prominent he started learning more about this, writing about what he was learning on LinkedIN. Started to be contacted by health tech founders and started consulting and sharing his healthcare experience. Doctors often do not pay attention to things outside of medicine. It can be important to step out of your comfort zone and learn something new. We need to pay attention to what is happening with tech and AI as we will be seeing more of that. There is scope for these tools to free us from mundane tasks and paperwork. Digital solutions may be implemented faster in rural health as there is a long history of using telehealth in these areas. There is a need for digital solutions in rural areas as there is a lack of doctors, this can be a solution to help provide care with the support of other members of the healthcare team. When the only doctor on the island gets snowed in for a few days, the only solution is to provide remote digital consultations. Give rural medicine a try, it can be an adventure in beautiful surroundings and you become part of the community. Thank you for listening to the Rural Road to Health!

Dr Wiktor Szczudlinski is a general practitioner who qualified in Poland and is now working in Scotland. He shares his experience of working as a rural GP, why he decided to leave rural practice, and how he has become more involved in health tech and consulting with health tech start-ups.

Available 10th may 2024.

Dr Jaka Strel is a rural family doctor from Slovenia. With his team he has developed a novel approach to primary care with his community. This approach has led to Ziri becoming the healthiest municipality in Slovenia.

Available 30th April 2024.

Melanie Hartmann is a healthcare worker with a bachelor degree in interdisciplinary healthcare and management from Germany. She has been researching primary care networks on the Halligen Islands. She talks about the unique way in which primary care has been organized on the Halligen and the insights that she has gained during her research.

Available 20th April 2024.

Dr Bita Barghchi is a primary care doctor from Iran. In this episode she shares her experience of working in rural Iran and talks about some of the challenges faced by rural communities and healthcare workers.

Available 10th April 2024.

Upcoming Event – 13th EURIPA RURAL HEALTH FORUM

Prof John Wynn-Jones and Prof Mark Gussey are the co-chairs of the 13th EURIPA Rural Health Forum which will be held in Lincoln in June 2024. They will tell us more about this upcoming event and their aspirations for the Forum.

13th EURIPA Rural Health Forum – Lincoln, United Kingdom | 20th-22nd June 2024

Available 20th March 2024.

Upcoming Event – Ubuntu 2024

Prof Lionel Green-Thomson is the dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. He is also a member of the board of directors at the Network Towards Unit for Health. We talk about the upcoming Ubuntu 2024 conference.

Ubuntu 2024 – Cape Town, South Africa | 10th-13th September 2024

Available 17th March 2024.

Prof Nuno Sousa is a Neuroradiologist and the Director of the P5 Digital Medical Centre in Portugal. This centre has been developing digital health solutions to support the provision of healthcare in rural areas in Portugal. Their projects have been developed in close collaboration with the local communities they work with.

Available 10th March 2024.

Dr David Halata & Dr Katerina Javorska are rural family doctors form Czechia. Both of them have been involved in an initiative to improve rural healthcare in Czechia called Go Rural. Dr Halata is the chairman of the Working Group for Rural Medicine in the National society for Family medicine and creator of Go Rural. Dr Javorska is a member of the Working Group on Rural Medicine and has been working with students and young doctors in the Hradec Kralova region.

Available 29th February 2024.

Dr Sara Bradley is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of South Wales. Prior to this position she was a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of the Highlands and Islands, in Scotland working in the Division of Rural Health and Wellbeing. Her work focuses on social prescribing, rural service provision, mental health and wellbeing and community engagement and co-production.

Available 20th February 2024.

Professor Steven Orozco Arcila joins us from the University of Antioquia in Colombia. He teaches a range of subjects including public health, primary care and health promotion. In this episode we explore how conflict has affected the provision of healthcare in rural areas of Colombia.

Available 10th February 2024.

Dr Cath Cosgrave is a rural change-maker, strategic advisor, trainer, coach, presenter and evaluator. She has more than 25 years of experience working with rural communities developing community-centred, strength-based strategies to effectively address local health and community service issues. Dr Cosgrave created the Attract Connect Stay Framework which we discuss in this episode.

Available 30th January.

Dr Kenneth Yakubu completed his PhD at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of New South Wales, Australia, and the co-lead of the George Institute’s Ubuntu Initiative for research partnerships in Africa. Dr Yakubu trained as a family physician in Nigeria and practiced there before moving to Australia in 2019. His PhD thesis focused on human-rights based approaches for defining and achieving a sustainable skilled health workforce.

Available 20th January 2024.

Welcome back to the Rural Road to Health!

Season 2 is starting soon.

Intro available on the 10th January 2024.

Season 1 Wrap Up

The final episode to the first season of the Rural Road to Health. I will share some insights with you from my journey creating and hosting the podcast and give you a sneak peek to what is in store for 2024.

Available 15th December 2023.

EURIPA Rural Health Forum Summary

An overview of this event which was held in Romania and focused on rural health in Europe.

Available 30th November 2023.

Prof. Shelly Nowlan is Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer for Queensland and the deputy National Rural Health Commissioner for Australia. She has more than 30 years of experience in healthcare and nursing.

She talks about the development of the National Rural and Remote Nursing Generalist Framework and what is needed to support rural nursing.

Available 15th November 2023.

Michelle Rathman is is the founder of Impact Communications, Inc. a healthcare strategy and communications company. Since 1997 she has worked with rural health clinics, state offices of rural health and rural hospitals. Michelle helps facilitate transformation in healthcare settings across the US. She is also the host of the Rural Impact Podcast which tries to connect the dots between policy and rural issues.

Available 28th October 2023.