LISTEN: How a Cadetship helped a metalworker become a doctor

Applications are now open for Rural Resident Medical Officer Cadetships and Rural Resident Medical Officer Cadetships for Indigenous Medical Students, and now is the perfect time to hear from a former Cadet about just how life-changing a Cadetship can be!

Expelled from boarding school in year 11, Nicholas Ireland first became a sheet metalworker before working as a FIFO welder on oil rigs off the coast of Western Australia, where he realised he wanted to do something else with his life.

Nicholas quit and applied for a university foundation course before being accepted into medicine via a rural pathway before being supported professionally and financially by Rural Doctors Network’s Cadetship program!

You’re encouraged to listen to his interview on the Destination Medicine Podcast about how achieving his childhood dream of becoming a rural generalist doctor became a possibility!

Listen to the interview here.

Rural Doctors Network, 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 reading:

• Study confirms Rural Medical Cadetship provides long-term workforce pipeline for rural health (2026)
• Dr Pip Kensit speaks to WIN News about Cadetships and community in the bush (2025)
• Indigenous Cadet Shay-Lee Coulson's driving force to "increase the likelihood of a First Nations patient presenting to a First Nations doctor" (2024)