University graduates are now earning six-figure salaries in their first year of employment if they are willing to leave Australia’s cities and move to a remote part of the country.
Brooke Mackie, 24, recently moved to Mount Isa in north-west Queensland after studying medicine at James Cook University in Townsville.
“I really like the dynamic of small mining towns,” he told Daily Mail Australia.
“There’s a good sense of community. They’re usually very hard-working communities and the feeling of dealing, as a doctor, with the people you meet is quite nice.”
As a first year physician in Mount Isa HospitalDr. Mackie earns a base salary of $87,000 having practiced medicine full-time for only six months.
But that rises to more than $100,000 with weekend penalty fees as a junior doctor doing rotations in emergency, obstetrics, surgery and pediatrics.
In addition, there are incentives from the Queensland Government, including a $34,500 inaccessibility grant.
Brooke Mackie, 24, recently moved to Mount Isa in north-west Queensland after studying medicine at James Cook University in Townsville (pictured with fiancé Taylor Tomlinson).
That brings her salary to $134,500, and her job also includes free accommodation and relocation as Australia faces a housing and rental crisis.
Starting next year, she will be eligible for a $21,500 professional development grant and a $40,000 cash incentive to train to become a rural GP.
But it can be exhausting. Some weeks Dr. Mackie works 11 days straight.
Dr Mackie grew up moving around the mining towns of Weipa and Mackay in North Queensland, so Mount Isa is not much different, except for the 4°C winter temperatures inland.
“It’s quite similar to a lot of the towns I grew up in, the difference is that it has a Coles and a Woolies,” he said.
Dr Mackie’s ambition is to become a hospital obstetrician and also work as a GP after her mother was forced to travel long distances to give birth safely.
“There is a massive shortage of rural obstetricians in Queensland – we’ve had to close a lot of birth centres so women are having to travel hours to get somewhere they can give birth,” she said.
‘From the point of view of employability it is very good; from the personal point of view, living in the countryside, my mother has been in that situation of having to travel hours and hours to be with my brothers and me.
“Being able to give birth where you are, where you have support systems and receive prenatal care in your local community is really important, so that’s what I’m interested in.”
Dr Mackie challenged the idea that there was nothing to do in Mount Isa, pointing out that the area was home to rodeos, multicultural festivals and was close to great camping and 4WDing spots.
“I’m definitely more of a country girl at heart,” she said.
As a first-year doctor at Mount Isa Hospital, Dr Mackie earns a base salary of $87,000 after practising medicine full-time for just six months, but that salary increases to $134,500 with penalty fees and an inaccessibility allowance.
“If people are worried about going out into the countryside – ‘there’s nothing to do’ – there’s something going on almost every weekend.”
But he regretted how far away he was from his relatives who lived in Townsville, Brisbane and Gladstone.
“Sometimes I find it difficult, if you want to visit your family you have to pay an arm and a leg to get a flight,” he said.
Despite the distance, the young doctor is considering one day moving to an even more remote area of Queensland, in the Cape York Peninsula region, to be able to care for indigenous patients.
“There’s a whole range of intergenerational trauma with Indigenous patients and a distrust sometimes of Western or white medicine, so dealing with those social factors as well as highly complex patients makes medicine very interesting and has great learning opportunities as a young doctor,” she said.
Dr Mackie’s ambition is to become a hospital obstetrician and also work as a GP, having witnessed her mother forced to travel long distances to give birth safely.
Her fiancé Taylor Tomlinson works in Mount Isa as a maths and physics teacher.
Across Australia, general practitioners have an average salary of $133,386, but the average taxable income increases to $163,360 with government incentives.
Queensland offers rural and remote benefits worth $187,000, including a $34,500 inaccessibility allowance, a two-year workforce attraction incentive scheme of $70,000, a $21,000 motor vehicle allowance, a $21,500 professional development grant and $40,000 cash incentives for 500 junior doctors to train to become GPs.
