Hugh Schuitemaker, Murray Pioneer
A desire to see sustainable medical care provided for Riverlanders has seen a former local doctor receive a major national award.
Renmark-based retired GP David Rosenthal recently received the 2024 Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine (ACRRM) Distinguished Service Award for five decades of dedication to rural, remote, and First Nations healthcare.
Dr Rosenthal said establishing a pathway for young doctors to become connected to the Riverland had been a long-time career goal.
“You develop your ideas based on what you’ve experienced yourself, and there were people that mentored and guided me when I first went into practice up here,” Dr Rosenthal said.
“They were very significant people, both in preventing me from making mistakes, and also in their teaching”.
“(Emeritus Professor) Paul Worley and I had many conversations about whether medical students could be taught in a rural practice, by being exposed to it. He did the legwork to persuade the university to agree to that”.
“The university agreed that students, in their third year, could come to the Riverland and be embedded in rural practice, literally to get their hands dirty. We were the first place in Australia that did that.”
Dr Rosenthal said ensuring young doctors were attracted to, and remained in rural areas, was and remains crucial to the survival of those communities.
“I’ve been quite happy to support younger qualified doctors in their journey”¦ and then becoming part of rural practice in Renmark,” he said.
“I had always hoped we would develop a system which we now have, to allow older doctors like me to retire knowing there are suitably skilled, young doctors to take our place, because for many years that wasn’t the case.
“We worried that practices didn’t have sufficient doctors to look after the community, but that seems to me to have changed very much for the better.”
ACRRM president Rod Martin said Dr Rosenthal had dedicated his life to improving rural healthcare and supporting the next generation of doctors.
“His service has had a profound impact on healthcare delivery in rural South Australia and beyond,” Dr Martin said.
This article appeared in the Murray Pioneer, 13 November 2024.
Related story: Dr Rosenthal’s Riverland journey
