GESA's Regional, Remote and Indigenous Program

GESA’s Regional, Remote and Indigenous Program was born from a forward-thinking approach to raising advocacy and addressing the barriers and challenges regional practitioners face.

Any GESA member can be part of this program and we encourage you to contact us for more information via this form.  

As part of the program, we were able to place the inaugural GESA fellow, Bassem Ibrahim who has spent the past six months in the Northern Territory at Royal Darwin Hospital.

“I have been fortunate to be the regional fellow for GESA based out of Darwin this year. It's been a phenomenal opportunity to combine my interests of gastroenterology and regional health care. Over the last six months I've had an amazing experience working with the gastroenterologists out there but also through the visiting professor program.” Said Bassem.  

“We were supported from a lot of professors through GESA who have come up to Darwin for mentorship and tutoring and I had an opportunity to go down to Alice Springs as well.” 

“The entire program so far has been incredible it's been very eye-opening to see what challenges we are facing generally in regional health care and in gastroenterology. It's been amazing to have the support of GESA.” 

Bassem will remain a strong advocate for the program and recommends eligible candidates apply for this once in a lifetime opportunity. “Several of my colleagues have reached out after hearing about my experiences. It's been a great year and I'm excited to see the program grow and promote more training in regional areas.”  

As part of the initiative there is now an opportunity for Fellows at both Royal Darwin and Alice Springs Hospitals.  

More than 20 practitioners attended the RRI Outreach program in Alice Springs, including Ben Devereaux (former GESA President), RRI Network Chair Julian Rong, GENCA and Surgeons undertaking hands on training and support for staff at the Alice Springs Hospital hosted by Richard Johnston, Director of Medical Services. 

“I think it's really important that we encourage and engage with these types of partnerships to help purge the health gap,” said Richard.  

“There's a health gap between cities and rural and there's clearly a health gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous. We must sustainably support our specialists in regional Australia and provide them with peer-to-peer support that reduces the impact of professional isolation which is also a retention problem.” 

“Having the opportunity to have a fellow from GESA in Alice Springs Hospital next year both supports the specialist and advocates for regional training amongst the specialist’s colleges. It's well recognised that we have recruitment challenges and this investment in the future is an exciting partnership. GESA has a five-year commitment with the Northern Territory Government.”  

“I'm very excited to meet our new specialist and working closely with them to build both a clinical and research program that we can bounce off into the future.” 

“It's exciting, it's very exciting,” said Richard.