Dr Christie Rodda
Dr Rodda is a GP Advocate for the Federal Electorate of Indi, Victoria and Chair of the RACGP Doctors for Women in Rural Medicine Committee (DWRM). During GP25, Christie delivered the pre-conference workshop ‘Empowering Women in Rural General Practice: Leadership, Advocacy and Mentoring’, helping develop confidence, skills, and networks that can raise the voices of busy, isolated female rural GPs.
What made you choose a career in general practice?
I started my GP training as a registrar 15 years ago in Beechworth, a small rural town in northeast Victoria, and have never left. I was pretty set on rural general practice from early on as I love diversity and a challenge! There is never a boring moment in general practice and I'm always doing something different, whether it’s emergency care, office based general practice, ward rounds, supervising, or running the clinic at our local prison.
What made you want to become an Advocate?
I love general practice so much, especially rural practice, and because I could see how the care was so valuable and so economical that I became increasingly frustrated with the lack of support from government and the precipitous decline in junior doctors choosing it as a career. I found myself complaining in the corridors to my colleagues and it was getting me down, especially once the pandemic hit and some burnout kicked in. At some point I realised that I needed to stop complaining and
do something, for my own psychological wellbeing if nothing else. My advocacy journey started with the Doctors for Women in Rural Medicine committee, and when the RACGP advertised for advocates, I didn't think twice before raising my hand!
You’re Chair of the Doctors for Women in Rural Medicine Committee. How does advocacy underpin your work in this space?
Chairing DWRM lets me combine my passion for rural general practice with my desire to influence policy and decision making in the one area in which I feel I have anything even close to expertise – being a woman! The most fantastic thing about DWRM is the sense of connection and collaboration; we have an online presence but also run national online member meet-ups, guest speakers, educational sessions and conference workshops. In the process, we gather the voices of our membership and, via my position on RACGP Rural Council, I feed those views and solutions directly back to College leadership. I’ve also been able to use the role to establish relationships with other groups, such as RDAA’s Female Doctors Group, APNA, and AHPA to collaborate on issues where joint advocacy amplifies our message.
What’s your biggest tip for successful advocacy?
I’ve been given some great tips in my advocacy journey but they all seem to distil down to having the energy to keep at it relentlessly, and being prepared to say the same thing repeatedly, for a very long time. I think it's easier when you have genuine passion behind your advocacy; you can find fun and joy in it if you can develop friendships and allies in the process. And, even though I have great respect for what MPs and their advisors manage to be across, never forget that they only know a fraction of what you do about general practice and the primary care system – so in that respect, when we have their audience, we have the capacity for a lot of influence.