What will you take home from Rural WONCA 2026?

One amazing thing that I got to take away from this conference is just meeting a variety of people with a huge vast array of different backgrounds and experiences working in rural healthcare from all across the globe and you can see that there are a lot of differences in how things are done but there's a big commonality in advocacy and working together in community which I thought was really inspiring >> a sense of really deep camaraderie. It's uh wonderful to meet and uh you know belong to a tribe of people who are engaged um not simply in the rhetoric of strengthening rural primary care but also in the practice of it and who are uh willing to kind of journey uh throughout their lives doing this. despite the diversity in faces and places where everyone is from, there's so much goodwill. And I think when you work in rural places and spaces, you know, the generosity, the generosity in their time, the willingness to help others. So, I think that's kind of a uniting force here at Rural Wonka. And it's really cool, you know, it's um I guess also it's a lack of egos, you know, it's just a a very flat structure and people willing to share. So it's just a nice place to be. I getting a strength I guess from finding common ground and meeting others who agree with that and who are promoting that in many different ways. So it's been wonderful to to hear that and I feel a great uh improvement in the strength to go home and continue with that focus. One thing that I'm going to take away from this conference is lateral networking. So I think a lot of the time uh we focus a lot especially at the stage of my career that I am at where I'm not fully established but I'm not as young as I used to be. Um we focus a lot on climbing the ladder but actually this conference has reinforced that there's a lot of people who are my peers who kind of who get the rural message and that I can work with them to bolster myself to get support and to actually bring forth some really cool and interesting projects. connection with colleagues, spending time talking to people and the real thing I'm learning from New Zealand people and the Maui is connection to country, connection to culture, connection to civilization. >> It really is just all boils down to community. um the people in our community delivering services by the community for our community um on the ground and the passion that people have for that and not waiting for the government to show us and tell us what to do. The services that are innovative and are working really well are ones that people in the community have they've seen the need and they've just gone on and done it. getting to know all the people that I didn't know before uh from around the world that have a similar interest and passion in uh disability policy making um improving the lives of rural folks with disability. I think this conference has just really helped to disprove that fact that we're isolated in our rural community across the world actually there's so many people who have so many similarities in terms of being rural and what that means to them no matter where they're from. We're really actually connected um more so than ever. One thing, okay, there are a lot of things, but one important thing is keep pushing, keep pushing, keep pushing. >> Meaningful improvements that really stick, that really make a difference, that are really worthwhile improving the health for people in remote rural communities. You need to be thinking, planning and acting in decades, not years. This is about longevity. I think the most important thing that I would take back is the grace initiative and you know what a wonderful way to collaborate and network. From the keynote yesterday uh Dr. Diana Marie was talking about uh having hard conversations and opening up the space to have hard conversations. This applies to work with patients and clients but also with staff and employees but also with potentially policy makers too. this rural Wonka conference in particular, I like the fact that there have been other health professionals, not just family medicine doctors present and also other types of professionals that work in the community, researchers. Um, and I think through conversations, the best part about this is getting their maybe alternative perspective on what's happening in the healthcare system. sometimes maybe some hard conversations about, you know, what we as doctors could and probably should be doing better. How human connections are at the heart of the rural medicine and yeah the advanced technology can help us um like improve our efficiency but uh the human connections are always at the center of our work. I think for me there's been an affirmation that um indigenous knowledges plural and western knowledge cannot be integrated and the importance of ensuring our students understand the significance of the indigenous knowledges especially when they're working with our remote communities in Australia. >> Many of the plenaries have been outstanding. The session yesterday by by Mark and Dr. uh Diane uh um was exemplary. I do not think I have actually attended uh a session like that at a medical conference or a health systems conference ever. Just the some of those ideas about uh learning as movement. How do you use uh the epistemology that uh exists in traditional learning systems, indigenous learning systems across uh the world and in this case the Maui culture was really eye opening, very inspiring and it's uh um their book is probably going to become a spiritual curriculum for me. I think that it's really important that we understand that the institutions, health, education, social sector, justice are all founded on imperialism with the idea that there is a superior one knowledge system that is dictating how we operate inside health. when we're trying to talk about our knowledge system from an indigenous perspective that you understand that they don't fit into the western box. We wanted in our keynote for us to realize that it starts by us being able to have uncomfortable conversations about our histories to sit with that and to not avoid the discomfort but actually sit in the discomfort. It's quite a violent process to think that your years of giving service to your community, to your people who you value has actually been perpetuating racism. That's quite a violent process. So our our message was we care about each other. We're connected to each other. How come we can't sit with each other and talk about the discomfort that we experience when we're operating with another way of knowing? I think we're moving. I do think it's slow. I think the health system could be a lot faster. I think that's where the compass is directed at. I don't think it's about one particular place like youth mental health or assisted dying or traditional herbal properties. I think it's the value base of those indigenous people. And here in Alteora without doubt it is orang papa not well-being not mental health. Bring our histories to life. Bring our ancestral ways of knowing to life. Bring your personal distress stories to life because they will be your descendants stories that you use as blueprints that they will feel connected to. To all of the family doctors operating around the world, I implore you, I challenge you, I hope that you consider the distress in your families and what it's like for you when you avoid sharing your most vulnerable stories with your family. You're expecting your patients to do it. I challenge you to sit with it in your families because if you can do it in your families, you're growing a new tomorrow. And those family members are patients of family doctors. If you can do it with your family, imagine the rippling effects across the world.