Unless you are a surfer, birdwatcher or have been around me for the last year and not heard me shut up about it, you probably haven’t heard of the Isle of Tiree. The most westerly of the Inner Hebrides, it takes a four-hour ferry journey from Oban to get to (on a good day) and is renowned for being very sunny, very windy and very flat. The wind aspect makes each foray into the car park to fetch patients with an apron on a comical experience of trying not to be suffocated when the inevitable head wind whips the apron into your face.
Healthcare on the island is provided by one doctor who is on-call 24/7 alongside a practice nurse and four district nurses. Our total population is around six hundred and fifty, but in the summer it swells to over two thousand, which means that things can get seriously busy. Day-to-day we run like any GP surgery would on the mainland with the exception that bloods have to be done before the boat leaves!
However, what makes Tiree such a great place to be a medical student is the exposure to emergency care which is a far more common occurrence than I expected when I first came here.
When an emergency is called through, everything is put on hold at the surgery and the treatment room turns into a mini resus bay. Whilst treatment is being initiated we have to liaise with the air ambulance crews about evacuation off the island. If the weather is bad this can be quite a challenge and means the doctors have to manage acutely unwell patients with very limited resources for hours at a time. As a medical student it is a total privilege to watch and be involved in this.
Alongside being able to live in such an amazing place, the highlight for me has been getting to work alongside doctors and nurses who epitomize the rural generalist model that ScotGEM is all about. It really inspires me to aim to have the breadth and depth of knowledge to be able to turn my hand to literally anything – because that is what they have to do on a daily basis.
So there you go. I hope that gives you an idea of what life on Tiree is like. Someone asked me the other day if I ever get bored or lonely. In truth, I don’t ever want to leave.
