“It’s been a great privilege to share people’s journeys, but for them to actually have valued it beyond just a normal relationship, that’s something that’s really important to me,” she said.
“I have been very privileged to have the career that I’ve had, to have the insight into people’s lives, being able to share the highs and lows of their lives, their healthcare, their health journeys, whether that’s being involved with delivering babies or caring for someone at the end of their life.”
As well as being a general practitioner in Echuca, she has long been advocating for regional medicine through her work with various regional health groups, such as being on the Rural Doctors Association of Victoria and Australia boards.
“I’ve always been a bit of a believer that there’s no point in just sitting back and whinging about things that you probably need to put in a bit of effort yourself to try and make things better,” Dr Harrison said.
“That’s what my goal has been, just to make things better for rural doctors and for rural communities because the two things go together.”
It has been a decades-long passion project for Dr Harrison to improve access to regional medicine and the quality of life for local doctors.
“I guess that’s where my passion is — it’s to try and help our workforce in rural areas so that we have doctors who can provide the sort of breadth of services needed in smaller towns. I’m very aware that that’s a problem at the moment,” she said.
“I also want to make sure that our rural doctors have a good quality of life because that’s something that is heavily impacted by the workforce demands that we have at the moment.
“I’ve sat on a number of committees for both state and federal government where sometimes you just have to stand up and say, ‘well, hang on, what you are proposing is not going to work’.”
Training people to help others has been another rewarding part of her role as a regional medical practitioner.
“I’m very thrilled to be in the situation where there are days when I’m working with people that I’ve been involved in their training, and I’m very proud of those people and especially the ones that have chosen to stay as rural doctors,” Dr Harrison said.
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