Talented med student keen to return - December 2015

WHANGANUI PROUD: After a successful fourth year at medical school, former WHS student Katie Scorringe is already thinking about what she can do for the health of her hometown.

A passion for health and Whanganui will put Katie Scorringe and her hometown in good stead for the future.

The Whanganui woman has just completed her fourth year at medical school in which she picked up a handful of awards.

The future looks bright for Miss Scorringe who wants to return to Whanganui once she has become a fully qualified doctor.

After three years in Dunedin, she moved to Wellington to begin the practical years of her studies and will be there for the final two.

This year, Miss Scorringe was awarded the Ian Prior Prize in Public Health from Otago.

Add to that a group project she led, which looked into health needs of takatapui (Maori who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual and or transgender), won the public health project prize.

"It was pretty intensive and it came out with some good health research, as well, and hopefully we'll have a publication out of it...which is cool to complete in your first year of medicine."

Miss Scorringe then took the work to present at the Maori Medical Practitioners conference. Despite not knowing it was up for grabs, she came away with the best student presentation to complete a hatrick of awards.

Her successful year has ended with a four-week student summership programme which she is currently doing at Whanganui Hospital. Whanganui District Health Board has employed local medical students "to try and pull us back to Whanganui when we've finished our degrees", Miss Scorringe said.

But it seems her mind is already made up.

"I went into medicine because I wanted to come back to Whanganui and improve the health statistics of our local population," she said. "They're really poor at the moment and I think it's just because we don't have the doctors who stick around long enough and build that relationship with the patients.

"People like me and other people from Whanganui if they come back they can make a huge difference."

General practice always appealed to Miss Scorringe and, after sampling a range of fields, it remains her preference.

"I was told that I shouldn't go into medicine with a specialty in mind because then you're not open minded," she said. "So I tell myself that I don't have a specialty chosen."

But she has had a go at general practice and..."I loved it".

In two years, when it comes time to apply for jobs, Miss Scorringe will be looking to Whanganui.

"It's a little of where are you needed and where you want to be and I guess I'm quite lucky it kind of meets up in the same place," she said.

"We have a high population of Maori, low socioeconomic means across the board. That equals poorer outcomes in general," Miss Scorringe said.

"I believe the way to attack that would be at a GP level, kind of prevention rather than treatment."

But there are other drawcards.

"Then Whanganui has other beautiful things as well. It has a strong cultural identity, which a lot of other places in New Zealand don't.

"We have all these negative things but we have a high population of te reo speaking students and high population of people in kapa haka and those things are good for health as well. You've gotta look at the two sides of the story."

(Wanganui Chronicle 16/12/15)