From classrooms to rural clinics: a Waikato and Coromandel Rural School Visit

We started our Waikato/Coromandel RSV bright and early in Auckland, met the team, and packed everything into the cars before heading south for our first visit to Pukekohe. It was a really nice way to start the week and gave us a chance to settle into presenting together before properly hitting the road. After that, we continued down to Mangakino, where we stayed for our first night and got ready for a much busier second day.

The next morning, we headed into Tokoroa, where we visited two schools back-to-back. Both sessions had really good engagement, and it was awesome getting to talk to tauira about medicine alongside all the other health disciplines represented in our team. There were a couple of students who were already planning careers in healthcare, and it was great to have some one-on-one time with them after to help them go through their options.

After finishing our school visits, we had some time to explore Tokoroa and naturally ended up doing some op shopping. We found a particularly cool local op shop and ended up chatting with some of the locals working there. We had a really interesting conversation about Tokoroa itself, some of the challenges facing the community, and the ways people support each other locally. It was really great to talk with people and learn a little about the places we were visiting, which gave much more context to the rest of the trip.

One of the absolute highlights of the entire week came afterwards when we visited Tokoroa Medical Practice and met Mark Taylor. This was an incredible opportunity, particularly as a medical student, because we got to see some genuinely innovative examples of what rural healthcare can look like when a community has to find solutions that work for its own circumstances.

We learnt about how the practice is using telemedicine to maintain access to doctors despite workforce shortages and geographical barriers. One of their doctors is now based in Wellington while continuing to care remotely for a patient base of around 3,000 people in Tokoroa. It was really cool to see telemedicine being used not just as an occasional alternative to an in-person appointment, but as part of an actual model for providing continuity of care to a rural population.

What was equally interesting was hearing about how the practice has looked beyond the traditional boundaries between health professions. We learnt about pharmacists being supported to undertake further postgraduate study, including master’s-level training, so they can take on greater clinical responsibility in relevant areas such as diabetes care. As students, we hear a lot about multidisciplinary healthcare, but it was completely different seeing what that can mean in practice when a rural community has limited workforce capacity. Rather than every profession working within a narrow box, the focus was on how people could safely develop their skills and work together to meet the needs of the community.

We also heard about the practice’s collaboration with local iwi to respond to issues such as scabies. Instead of approaching it purely as a matter of prescribing treatment, the response recognised the practical barriers that can make conditions difficult to eliminate. This included initiatives such as access to washing services alongside clinical care. It was such a good example of healthcare responding to the actual circumstances people are living in, rather than assuming that giving someone a prescription is always enough to solve the underlying problem. It was a really valuable visit, and Mark was incredibly generous with his time and knowledge. I think the whole team walked away with a much broader understanding of what rural healthcare can involve.

From Tokoroa, we headed down to Tūrangi for the night, which was absolutely beautiful. We even got the full rural experience with plenty of cows along the way! The next morning, the whole team woke up at around 6 am and headed down to watch the sunrise over the edge of the lake together. It was an insanely early start, but completely worth it and definitely one of those moments from the trip that everyone will remember.

After sunrise, we headed to Te Kura o Hirangi, where we ran two sessions across the senior and junior tauira. It was great getting to adapt the way we presented between the different age groups and see how students engaged with the activities and careers differently. From there we drove up to Taupō, where we met with the Wellsprings medical team. After what we had seen in Tokoroa, it was really interesting to visit another healthcare provider and see a different model of rural and regional healthcare.

Naturally, we also managed to fit in some more op shopping before getting back on the road! Our next stop was Paeroa, where we did some compulsory sightseeing, including a waterfall and, of course, the giant L&P bottle. From there we headed out to Onetai Estate for the night, which was another trip highlight. We made our own pizzas for dinner, and our lovely host Steve cooked them for us in his wood-fired pizza oven!

The next morning, we headed further into the Coromandel for our Whitianga and Whangamatā school visits. By now, we definitely had a good flow to the presentation, and the sessions were both really engaging. We then managed to stop for some very good kai and beach views along the way, which is definitely one of the perks of doing an RSV through the Coromandel!

That night we headed properly into the wops. Our accommodation was in the far north of the Coromandel and involved around 40 minutes of driving along gravel roads to get there. It genuinely felt like we were driving to the end of the earth, but once we arrived it made complete sense. The views over the beach were incredible, and it was easily one of the most beautiful places we stayed during the week.

We woke up the next morning to another beautiful, sunny day and went down to walk along the private beach and watch the sunrise before getting ready for our final school sessions. It was a pretty amazing way to start the last day before heading out for our final visits and eventually beginning the trip home.

Looking back, what made the week so good was getting to see the purpose of the programme come together from so many different angles. We were there primarily to show rural rangatahi the range of health careers available to them and hopefully make those pathways feel a little more tangible. At the same time, travelling through Waikato and the Coromandel gave us as health students an opportunity to learn a huge amount ourselves.

We got to speak with tauira about their aspirations, hear directly from locals about their communities, meet rural health professionals, and see some of the creative ways services are responding to workforce shortages and local health needs. As a medicine student, the trip definitely expanded my understanding of what a career in rural medicine could actually look like, which was great timing ahead of doing my rural placement next year. It was also really cool watching tauira connect with different members of our team and seeing the programme do what it is supposed to do – putting real people behind these careers and showing students that there are many different ways into healthcare!