Education Trust honours rural health icon

Education Trust honours rural health icon

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The enormous contribution and dedication to rural health in New Zealand made by the late Dr Pat Farry has been recognised through the establishment an education trust.

Queenstown-based Dr Farry died suddenly while working locum duty in Twizel on October 8, 2009. He was 65.

In memory and in recognition of Dr Farry’s dedication, family and friends have established The Pat Farry Rural Health Education Trust to commemorate his achievements and to further develop and maintain his vision.

“Pat made an enormous contribution to rural medical education and it is fair to say that he not only helped in its revival, but possibly in its very survival,” said Trust Chairman John Farry.

“At the funeral of his brother, the late Robert Kennedy said: ‘Most people see things as they are and say; Why? My brother saw things as they could be and said; Why not?’

“My brother Pat Farry held a strong belief in precisely the same principle,” said John Farry.

The Objectives of the Trust are to support the sustainability and quality of health services to rural communities by:

Supporting the provision of innovative patient-centred rural community-based health education;

Utilising real life experiential learning; integrating primary, secondary and tertiary health care;

Ensuring high quality inter-professional teaching associated with rural health teaching centres;

Encouraging interested undergraduate and post graduate students to pursue a career in rural health practice;

Enhancing links between rural general practice, rural hospitals and urban teaching hospitals;

Enhancing the development of distance education technologies in health education;

Supporting rural academic career opportunities and encouraging both recruitment and retention of rural health professionals.

The other Trustees are Pat’s wife Sue, Stuart Gowland, John Hillock, Branko Sijnja, Kirsty Murrell-McMillan and Michele Wilkie.

Donations to the Pat Farry Rural Education Trust can be made to PO Box 1252 Queenstown or from March 2 visit the trust website www.patfarrytrust.co.nz (after March 1).

The Trust will be officially launched at the New Zealand Rural General Practice Network conference in Christchurch next month (March 11-14).

About Dr Pat Farry

After graduating from Otago University Pat briefly considered pursuing a career in surgery but after going to Queenstown as a locum he found, in the glorious terrain of the Wakatipu district, his true calling as a rural general practitioner. After more than three decades he had a very clear idea of the problems that faced rural doctors on a day to day basis. Education and training for rural general practice was virtually non- existent and a total lack of locums meant that rural practitioners had little chance of holidays or time to pursue continuing education. In the early 1970s general practice had become rather unfashionable and rural general practice, in particular, was of little interest to young graduates.

Over the years Pat travelled extensively to Australia, Canada, USA and Great Britain, gaining insights into how rural general practitioners were educated and how they operated in other parts of the world. He adapted his observations to the New Zealand environment and began the long quest to establish his vision of rural medical education.

After years of intense effort a milestone was reached in 2006 when the then Minister of Heath provided approximately $300,000 to pilot the Rural Medical Immersion Programme (RMIP) for fifth year students at Otago University. This amount was sufficient to place six students in rural situations and set in motion a new concept of rural medical education. In response to a further request from Pat, the Minister of Health in 2009 provided approximately $160,000 for the development of a video conference tele-medicine network at six RMIP teaching centres.

The pilot programme was very successful and as a result Otago University advanced approximately $1.2 million for the expansion of RMIP in 2009 and 20 students were placed in six rural locations around New Zealand. It was the dawn of a new era in rural medical education.

Meanwhile, Pat and his team were seeking financial support from local organisations in order to establish a Chair of rural general practice at Otago University. The group succeeded in obtaining a grant of approximately $300,000 from the Community Trust of Southland and approximately $400,000 from the Community Trust of Otago to establish the Chair and the world search for a suitable appointee to that Chair is ongoing.

ENDS