PHOTO: New permanent doctor, Lorraine Wheeldon has just started her year in Coonamble on 15 May
BOASTING a career spanning over fifty years, Coonamble welcomes its newest Doctor Lorraine Wheeldon.
Dr Wheeldon started her new role at the Coonamble Aboriginal Health Service on 15 May, where she will be for the next year.
Lorraine’s story begins in Bathurst NSW where she grew up, studying nursing at the local college before being offered a chance to study medicine.
“I received a scholarship from the University of Sydney to go and study Science there,” said Lorraine.
“From there I did medicine, back then Science 1 and Medicine 1 were just about the same subject so the change wasn’t too hard.”
“I came into it with an open mind, and I took to it like a duck to water.”
For Lorraine, a career in medicine offered the opportunity to travel around the world, which she took full advantage of.
“My first overseas job was working in a black hospital in South Africa during the apartheid,” said Lorraine.
“There was just so much to see and do, working there it felt like you got ten years’ experience in one year.”
“And I travelled up through to Zambia and Zimbabwe, or Rhodesia as it was called then.”
After returning to Australia to have children, she ventured off again, this time to Ireland.
“I never realised how much I loved the sun until I moved to Ireland,” said Lorraine.
A speedy return to the sunburnt country saw Lorraine open her own general practice in Roma, in south-central Queensland which she ran for twenty years.
Lorraine had also always dreamed of aviation, and while running the practice in Roma she would realise a lifelong dream.
“I can remember I was about five years old, and I was staying with my grandmother while the Macquarie flooded,” said Lorraine.
“I was sitting and just watching the helicopters and army who had come down for the floods, I thought it was a show put on just for me.”
“That was the day I fell in love with aviation.”
Forty years later she would take the dive and get her pilot’s licence.
“At that time I found myself with time and the opportunity to finally do it,” said Lorraine.
“From there I would fly around and visit people as the female doctor.”
“And myself and another woman from Cloncurry began what was called the Rural and Remote Women’s Health Scheme.”
The two got involved with Queensland Health to formalise the scheme, and it wasn’t before long that the program had peaked the attention of the Royal Flying Doctor’s Service.
“We formed it, and it was so successful but for what it could be it would be too big for us to handle, nowadays it’s Australia wide” said Lorraine.
“I stayed on and helped the RFDS out for about eight years after that, I knew some really great people who worked there during my time there.”
“And looking back I was very glad I was involved.”
After a storied career, she and her husband have settled in Coonamble for the final stop before retirement.
“I want to retire, and we have to get enough together to be comfortable for the next stage of our life,” said Lorraine.
“We figured we’d stay somewhere a bit more permanent instead of doing locum work, which is what I told my agency.”
“Coonamble popped up, and I’d done some locum work out here in the past and had nothing but good memories about the town and the people – so here we are.”
Lorraine understands the importance of having a more permanent doctor, which factored into her decision to join the team in a permanent capacity.
“I so understand why bush people are fed up,” said Lorraine.
“They have to come to the doctors and every time there’s someone different there, and then you have to tell the same old story and rebuild that rapport every time.”
“When I had the practice, I had several families for which I was their doctor for two to three generations, I was as a part of the family as family members were.”