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“Grab the opportunity”: Professor Jane Bleasel on 25 years of Outreach care
17th December 2025
Professor Jane Bleasel had been working as Head of the Department of Rheumatology at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney when she first saw there was a need for specialist rheumatology services in Wagga Wagga.
“That piqued my interest,” Professor Bleasel said. “It just seemed like an incredible opportunity to do something different.”
A distinguished rheumatologist and educator, Professor Bleasel is now Head of School and Dean of Sydney Medical School at the University of Sydney, and a long-serving Outreach provider delivering specialist care to rural and Aboriginal communities for the past 25 years.
"I worked in a hospital for many years. I added [Outreach work] on to my hospital work and then it replaced my hospital work because of how rewarding it is," she said.
That decision marked the beginning of her long involvement with the Medical Outreach Indigenous Chronic Disease Program (MOICDP), which aims to improve access to health services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living with chronic disease. The program delivers multidisciplinary clinical services through medical specialists, GPs, nurses and allied health professionals, for best practice chronic disease prevention, treatment, management and follow-up.
Over the course of her Outreach career, Professor Bleasel has provided services in regional centres including Wagga Wagga, Broken Hill and Armidale.
“It's fantastic medicine,” she said. “But more importantly, it's just very satisfying to be able to provide such a service.”
During her monthly Outreach visits, Professor Bleasel would sometimes see up to 70 patients across two days. “I worked hard, but it was incredibly satisfying,” she said.
Her passion for rural medicine is deeply personal.
“I have very strong rural roots. Although I was born in Sydney, my mother comes from Orroroo, which is on the edge of the desert in South Australia. My father's a Dubbo man… so, I've got a strong rural sort of background.
“You get off the plane and that smell of wheat – that just sort of fresh country smell.”
Professor Bleasel says the diversity of patients and communities is one of the most rewarding aspects of Outreach work.
“I love the diversity. I love the people, the rural people, they're so down to earth. They're really appreciative,” Professor Bleasel said.
Providing care in community, for community ensures people can access healthcare regardless of where they live – a fundamental element of the Outreach program.
“They appreciate that you've come from somewhere else and they are so grateful for the specialist care,” she said of her rural patients. “You see patients with quite diverse autoimmune conditions and often they should have been seen earlier, but they just don't have the access to care.
"Unfortunately, because of the lack of access to rheumatology care, rheumatoid arthritis patients sometimes wait 12 months to see you, where you really should see them within three months.
“The problem with not seeing people in a timely fashion is that they can develop complications and deformities.”
Outreach services help remove the significant financial and logistical burden patients would otherwise face travelling to metropolitan centres for specialist care.
“Generally, they have to pay to fly up to Sydney, accommodation, whatever the costs of the consultant… so it's a huge imposition on them financially and also time-wise.”
Professor Bleasel credits support from RDN in assisting with travel and accommodation as critical to maintaining her regular visits to locations such as Armidale and Broken Hill.
“I couldn’t do it otherwise… that makes it possible,” she said. “They’ve been fantastic supporting my clinical work.”
Collaboration with rural healthcare teams is another key reason Professor Bleasel values Outreach work so highly.
“The rural GPs are amazing,” she said. “There's not enough of them. There's a huge shortage of GPs in the rural centres, but they manage much more complex conditions without a specialist.
“GPs prioritise who they send to you and so you tend to see really interesting inflammatory conditions.
“It’s just a different atmosphere and I really find that it's a great place to work.”
Reflecting on the impact of her work, Professor Bleasel recalled treating a man in his 50s with severe rheumatoid arthritis. She said the diagnosis and treatment improved his quality of life in a way that felt like a “miracle”.
“He was so grateful,” she said. “I used to see him every six months for a script and every time he would just remind me of how bad he used to be.”
She has seen similar outcomes for young men living with ankylosing spondylitis, whose symptoms are often worse at night. “If you can control the inflammation, they sleep, they can work – it just returns them to their full function. That's really being able to provide that service, which otherwise they wouldn't be able to access.”
For clinicians considering Outreach work, Professor Bleasel’s message is simple:
“Grab the opportunity.”
“It gives you a new lease of interest, a different sort of medicine,” she said. “It’s incredibly rewarding because of the service that you offer to people that otherwise they wouldn't have access to.”
RDN administers the Australian Government's Medical Outreach Indigenous Chronic Disease Program (MOICDP) in New South Wales (NSW) and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT).
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