RASIC, Dr Veronika
Wales - Rural Family Doctor
What were your early experiences as a rural doctor?
I started my medical career in Croatia. After qualifying from the University of Rijeka, my first role was as a pre-hospital emergency doctor working in the county surrounding the capital city of Zagreb. This was my first exposure to rural medicine as many of the communities we served were rural. It became clear that these populations had less access to healthcare. Limited healthcare staff, distance and geography made providing timely emergency care difficult at times.
My second experience as a rural doctor was during my family medicine residency in Croatia. This was posted in a rural area that was experiencing a shortage of family doctors, an experience which I was not prepared for at the time. Croatia does not have any specific rural medicine training and rural clinics are often isolated with limited peer support. This experience left me feeling overwhelmed and struggling to provide care for the community I worked in. This led to burnout and my eventual decision to move to the UK where I have been living and working since 2016. I also reflected on this experience here.
Tell us about your involvement in WONCA and the Rural Seeds.
During my family medicine residency in Croatia, I learned about WONCA and found out that they had Young Doctor Movements in each region. EYFDM, then Vasco da Gama, was holding their annual forum in Dublin in 2014, this was the first WONCA event that I attended, and I was hooked from that point on. In 2015 I became a member of the Vasco da Gama executive, following the footsteps of Dr Raquel Gomez Bravo as the Beyond Europe Laison, and the following year becoming their first Policy Officer. In 2015 I also joined EURIPA and Rural WONCA to pursue my interest in rural practice. During the next six years, with support from Dr John Wynn-Jones, I worked on developing connections between students and young doctors and Rural WONCA. Following the Rural WONCA Conference in Dubrovnik in 2015, together with Dr Mayara Floss and Dr Amber Wheately, we started developing the idea of a global network for students and young doctors with an interest in rural practice. This was born out of our own experience of having limited exposure to rural medicine during medical school and lack of access to mentors who could support us in our career development. In 2015 Mayara Floss had the idea to start an online discussion where we could talk about these topics, this became the Rural Family Medicine Café. We gained momentum through the Rural Café and in 2017 officially launched Rural Seeds at the WONCA World Rural Health Conference in Cains, Australia. Rural Seeds has continued to develop and now has Rural Seeds Ambassadors from all 7 WONCA regions and is currently led by Dr Alexandra Ferrara, a family medicine resident in Canada and Jamil Khalfan, a medical student in Australia.
I continue to be a Council member for Rural WONCA, the treasurer of EURIPA and a member of the executive of the WONCA Europe Working Party for Policy Advocacy. It has been a real pleasure to meet, learn from and work with so many amazing family doctors from all over the world over the past 10 years!
What are you working on now?
Currently I am working part time as a rural GP in the South Wales Valleys, UK. About 18 months ago I founded a social enterprise, Rural Health Compass, with the mission of helping organization advocate for and develop better health policies for rural health equity in Europe. This idea grew out of my interest in health policy and the wider determinants of health and the impact they were having on the patients I was caring for. It became clear that many of the challenges we see have more structural and systemic causes that cannot be addressed in the doctor’s office. As part of this work, I created the Rural Road to Health Podcast, to amplify rural health voices and to share learning and insights about rural health, rural health careers and rural communities. I am grateful to all the guests who have shared their stories and expertise, many of them are WONCA members. This year I will be completing a masters in Global Health Policy with the University of Edinburgh which has helped me to develop a deeper understanding of public health and health policy to be more effective in the work I am trying to do.
And a bit about your interests outside of medicine?
Outside of medicine and the work I am doing with Rural Health Compass, I try to spend time in nature and with people dear to me. Last year I took up surfing as a way to combine learning a new skill, time in nature and exercise. I am far from mastering the waves, for now I am still spending more time in the water than on the surfboard, but it’s good fun. I also enjoy traveling and exploring new places, cuisines and cultures. I am looking forward to the WONCA World conference in Lisbon and having the opportunity to experience some of Portugal after the event.