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Dr Pip Kensit speaks to WIN News about Cadetships and community in the bush
11th December 2025
NSW rural medical Cadet Pip Kensit was interviewed by WIN News on the sidelines of the recent Medical Student Rural Inspiration Conference. The following is an extended report of her interview, touching on the success of the NSW Rural Resident Medical Officer Cadetship Program, and the importance of community and connectedness for students and junior doctors.
Dr Pip told WIN that the NSW Rural Resident Medical Officer Cadetship Program is a “scholarship program with a return of service component. In your final two years of medical school, people with an interest in rural medicine go through a rigorous process to become a Cadet, and in those final two years you receive financial support in addition to mentoring and networking opportunities."
But the program is about much more than financial assistance, Dr Pip explained, citing “the support, the mentoring, the access to conferences, CPD and training".
"For example, yesterday I undertook my Advanced Life Support 2 training, which is imperative for a junior doctor, and that was supported by my Cadetship role," Pip said.
As a medical student, Dr Pip was part of a research team which studied the success of the Cadetship program. “In terms of sustainability, two-thirds of Cadets are staying in rural and regional areas, and the majority are in primary care positions. So, this is one of our most tangible, sustainable programs out there and I’m very proud to say I’m a Cadet and I wouldn’t be here without it,” Dr Pip said.
“I’m an intern, so first-year out of medical school, and I moved to Orange in January so I’m quite new to Orange itself but originally from the region, so I feel like I’ve finally come home,” Dr Pip told WIN. “At the moment, as a junior medical officer, I work predominantly in the hospital setting. This means I move between various rotations such as orthopaedics, medical rotations, emergency to name a few.
“I’ve had this incredible opportunity just this year to undertake a rural generalist rotation in Cowra, which was my most recent rotation and my most favourite. And that’s a unique opportunity that was offered across the regional sites in NSW and something that is promoting more GPs to the region, but it was an incredible experience for me to have as a rural generalist registrar moving forward, especially to solidify the advanced skills that general practitioners have in regional sites now.”
Asked about some of the challenges facing young doctors in rural areas, Dr Pip said: “We can definitely acknowledge there are a number of challenges and staffing is one of those and we’ve spoken a lot about that throughout this conference, I think it’s sheer numbers.
“However, in saying that, from the medical student perspective and moving into junior medical officers, we have an increased number of [people interested] in rural and remote locations and that starts from medical student placement experiences.
“We know that more and more students are wanting rural and remote placement experiences, and the correlation of positive placement experience and longer-term outcomes is absolutely our biggest indicator of people staying in the country.
“In terms of the junior medical officer, for example, your interns and residents, we have over-subscribed positions for JMOs in the country and the reasons for this, despite the challenges, is actually because you are working directly with teaching consultants, you have supervision with bosses, you have exposure to diverse medicine, and most interestingly your scope of practice is incredibly large in a supported environment.
"Despite doing awesome medicine in the city, doctors in the country are doing "more"," Dr Pip told WIN.
“And on top of that, I’m die-hard rural so I think that the fact that you have a sense of connectedness and purpose to community is something you don’t get everywhere and something we really need to run with, and hence such a big indicator of why people go bush.
“And lastly: gratitude. The patients, the community and your colleagues – especially colleagues who are born and bred in these country areas – are so appreciative of you coming and working with them and their community, because we care.
“When we think about medicine in the country, I don’t think you can see it as just professional work as a doctor, it’s never in isolation to other aspects of life such as schooling, partners, housing, geographical isolation, and there’s so many things in place that are enabling these things to be broken down.
“One way is reducing, breaking down isolation through events like Rural Health Month and the Rural GPs Conference. We are getting people together, having that sense of connectedness and sharing ideas,” she said.
“We feel refreshed, we share ideas, we network, and as juniors, we learn from our forebearers about how to manage these challenges but also to have that sense of ‘I see you, I hear you’ and I do think that sense of support, mentoring and connectedness is probably going to be one way that we can overcome these barriers moving forward.”
RDN, on behalf of the NSW Ministry of Health, offers cadetships to medical students with a strong intent to undertake a medical career in rural New South Wales. Read more.
Related:
Dr Pip recently co-MC'd the National Rural and Remote Health Awards, hosted by Rural Health Pro at the National Press Club in Canberra. Her sit-down interview with RDN Chair Peter O’Mara, a proud Wiradjuri man, is coming soon to Rural Health Pro’s podcast called Healthy Exchange (stay tuned).
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