2023 WA Rural Health Excellence Awards - Metro-bush Champion of the Year

Congratulations to the finalists for the?Metro-bush Champion of the Year category:

Dr Justin Yeung WA Country Health Service

Dr Lewis Marshall South Metropolitan Health Service

Professor Donna Mak The University of Notre Dame Australia

Dr Justin Yeung ?

Dr Justin Yeung is a consultant emergency physician by training.??

He has held a number of leadership positions within WA Health, including directorship roles in emergency medicine at Royal Perth Hospital, Albany Health Campus and WA Country Health Service.??

He is currently Medical Director of the WA Country Health Service Command Centre, which incorporates a number of 24/7 clinical streams in acute telehealth – emergency, inpatient medicine, mental health, obstetrics and midwifery, palliative care and acute patient transfer coordination.??

Justin splits his time between Perth and Albany, and maintains clinical exposure working in the Emergency Telehealth Service and locums in regional Western Australia.??

He recently completed a graduate certificate in health care leadership.??When he does get back to the beautiful Great Southern, he’s also an oft-stung beekeeper.?

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Dr Lewis Marshall

Dr Lewis Marshall began as a junior doctor in the 1980s, where he spent time working in primary care in the Kimberley. ?

For more than three decades Lewis has been travelling across the state to provide clinical updates and education to staff.

?Attending a "Dr Lewis Marshall sexual health talk" has become a rite of passage for many public and primary health care professionals in WA.?

Lewis has been the head of the sexual health service at Fremantle Hospital since 2002, and is currently a sexual health and infectious disease physician, practising at Fiona Stanley and Fremantle Hospitals.? ?

He is also an Associate Professor at UWA and Notre Dame University.?? ?

Lewis an integral member of the WA Syphilis Outbreak Response Group and a member of Western Australian Committee for Blood-Borne Viruses and Sexually Transmitted Infections.?

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Dr Donna Mak

Professor Donna Mak discovered her love for rural medicine during a final year GP medical student placement in Derby. This love deepened during her GP training in Fitzroy Crossing from 1989 to 1993 and while working with the Kimberley Population Health Unit from 1995 to 2002. ?

It during her time in the Kimberley, she recognised the challenges of recruiting and retaining practitioners to rural and remote locations. ?

In 2005, Donna worked with the School of Medicine, University of Notre Dame, Fremantle community members and organisations to establish a rural health placement program in the Wheatbelt.

During the placement students undertake academic learning activities during the day and learn about living out bush from host families who accommodate students in their homes as part of their family.?

In 2006, she partnered with communities and organisations in the West Kimberley to establish as Remote Area Health Placement Program. It’s a unique immersion experience for second year medical students, where they live and work alongside West Kimberley people, to gain an understanding and appreciation of remote area life. ?

While a primary aim of the programs is to encourage the students to consider rural medical careers, these experiences are also pivotal in giving the students insight into the realities of rural life and are especially useful in helping metropolitan doctors to provide patient centred care to people from the bush. ?

In addition, Donna has significant experience in communicable disease control, specialising in trachoma and syphilis – diseases which disproportionately impact remote and disadvantaged communities.??