![Dr Konrad Kangru, Proserpine, is the incoming Rural Doctors Association of Queensland president. Dr Kangru will take over the role from outgoing president Dr Michael Rice. Dr Konrad Kangru, Proserpine, is the incoming Rural Doctors Association of Queensland president. Dr Kangru will take over the role from outgoing president Dr Michael Rice.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/t9XpvtrbmUPC3ifsrzE7bx/e88346a5-95d2-40e8-a0b4-7e1c4bd6f09a.jpg/r350_473_3339_2204_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
AFTER growing up in Melbourne, Dr Konrad Kangru is the first to admit ending up in Proserpine as a General Practitioner was a surprise.
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Dr Kangru is the 2017/18 incoming president of the Rural Doctors Association of Queensland, and he said it was during his first degree in Wagga Wagga he fell in love with the country.
After completing his medicine degree at University of Queensland in 2000, Dr Kangru worked in Toowoomba for one year, then Mt Isa for two, before moving to Proserpine where he has remained since 2004.
He said it was during his time in the west of Queensland that he realised the country’s needs.
“There was a long time where I was thinking about going and doing overseas relief work, but then I realised pretty early in my medical career that we have just as much need in rural Australia,” he said.
“We have got a lot of communities that have got huge disadvantage compared to urban patients.”
Despite a recent focus on appealing to rural high school students in an attempt to convince them to study medicine, Dr Kangru said he was testament that urban students can end up working in rural regions.
“You can make a rural career in Australia attractive to city guys, even interstate, if you just make sure that you have got the training, good supervisors, good support, and that you look after their families as well,” he said.
”But the main thing that has kept me in rural practice is the diversity, the opportunity to have so many skills and see so much variety.”