The medical equipment in the surgery that I took over was pretty dated and old. I knew that before I took over the practice that some of the medical equipment would need to be replaced so the first thing I did before even opening the doors was audit the medical equipment and made a list of the medical equipment that I needed to replace.

The practice was in a remote rural area and that really suited me. I wanted to change my life, get away from the city and get back to being a family medical doctor, which is what I had always wanted to be.

I had got caught up in the hospital system from when I had been an intern. I enjoyed emergency medicine and working with the most updated medical equipment available but anything that stressful takes its toll and after 10 years I just wanted something different.

The previous owner had been a friend of my fathers. Dad had contacted me when he heard the practice was up for sale and when he did he reminded me of my dream of being a family GP. It was the right time to make the change so I packed up my things and moved to the country.

The practice had a small house attached for me to live in which was very convenient so before I had even unpacked my things I let myself into the surgery to look at the medical equipment that I had available for the practice – keeping in mind that the closest hospital was two hours away and I was the only medical practitioner available to these local folks which meant that I would providing a range of different things.

This is the medical equipment that I found:

1. An ancient sterilizer that looked like it was the previous century. I had been assured that everything worked here but when I looked at this piece of medical equipment and wondered exactly how well;

2. A Prenatal Fetal Doppler Baby Heart monitor, which was probably the most, updated piece of medical equipment in the surgery. I had been warned that delivering babies and baby health were a big part of the practice as there were a lot of young families on the farms in the areas;

3. Some frayed looking tourniquets that really needed to be in the bin they were next to useless, I held off throwing them though until I had the necessary replacements. I needed quick and slow release for the different times that I would be using them;

4. A couple of stethoscopes that didn’t work – which I didn’t know was possible. These did go straight in the bin I had my own anyway so these were of no use to me anyway;

5. Oxygen tank and regulator: Now these pieces of medical equipment looked like they were in good condition maybe they had been updated fairly recently. They went on the list of medical equipment that was actually staying and would be of use to me;

6. The examination tables (there were two of them) were in pretty bad condition. One of them was lopsided and when I looked underneath one of the legs actually removed itself from the table altogether and fell on the floor. The other looked like the older of the two pieces of medical equipment and whilst it seemed in one piece in rocked alarmingly even if you just leant on it slightly;

7. There was a small lab area with the feature piece of medical equipment a microscope with two cracked lenses and a rather dirty wooden bench with a rusty bar fridge for specimens underneath that didn’t run when I connected it to the power and switched it on;

It took me hours to go through all of the medical equipment and the situation was worse than I thought, most of it wasn’t useable and I wondered how the previous doctor had been able to function without more updated medical equipment.

I needed to replace the medical equipment urgently, order supplies and order additional medical equipment as well so I jumped online and emailed a friend of mine who supplied medical equipment and sent him my list. He replied that he had the medical equipment and supplies that I needed and would ship it the next day.

I would wait till the medical equipment arrived to open the surgery and in the meantime I would unpack my personal things into the house and get myself settled. After unpacking for a couple of hours I was just settling in a chair with a well-earned coffee when there was an urgent knock on my door.

I answered and there was a young couple there, the woman about to give birth her contractions were very close together. I escorted them into the surgery and looked at my available medical equipment I thought to myself that this was going to be interesting.

I lay the woman on the rocking examination bed and instructed the husband to lean on the table to stabilize it. His mother had wandered in to help out and I sent her into the kitchen to get the water that I had recently boiled.

An hour later when we were all feeling a bit exhausted their new baby boy was born and even though we only had basic medical equipment he was born safely and both he and his mother were doing fine. Now this I thought was why I had moved to the country.