Graduate program just what doctor ordered

SARAH Canyon put on hold her dreams of being the latest doctor in a long line when she fell madly in love with an Australian holidaying in the US.

SARAH Canyon put on hold her dreams of being the latest doctor in a long line when she fell madly in love with an Australian holidaying in the US in the early 1990s, married him and went to live in Townsville.

Canyon had three children and obtained a science degree and a PhD from James Cook University, where her husband Deon also worked.

Then she succumbed to spousal pressure and began looking for a medical course that would suit her needs. "My husband said `why don't you go for it?'."

Last month she graduated as a doctor from the University of Western Australia, part of its first graduate course intake.

"I wanted to go to UWA because it was an established university, and Perth was a part of the country my husband hadn't seen much of," Canyon, 38, says. Deon continued to work for JCU, commuting when necessary.

After a six-month bridging course, Canyon and her colleagues -- there were 19 in the first intake -- joined the last four years of the undergraduate course.

"I had been around universities for a long time, so I had no trouble with the different age groups," Canyon says.

Sally Sandover, the professor who co-ordinated the graduate medical program and mentored the participants, says they were exceptionally dedicated. "All of them had other lives as well as being medical students, most had families, they came from such different backgrounds; they were highly motivated students."

Canyon is frank about the difficulties. "By the time it got to the clinical years it was challenging. Sometimes being in the hospital was fun, sometimes it was harrowing. I was definitely feeling burnt out by the end, tired of doing all those assignments."

She says it was most challenging on the personal level as she had to sacrifice spending a lot of time with her children, now aged 11, 13, and 16. "Just because my kids are older, it's not like they need you any less, but they pretend they need you less.

"My husband was amazingly supportive but towards the end he was doing all the school drop offs and pick ups and most of the dinners, whereas earlier on we had kept things 50-50.

"During term times it was harder to fit in anything more than assignments, when I had time off from going to the hospital I would be living chained to the desk for every waking hour and more."

That said, the children, have settled well in Perth, love school and are involved in many activities, funded, as Canyon's tuition has been, by proceeds from the sale of their Townsville house.

Canyon will begin her internship at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital next year, followed by two years of residency.

After that, general practice is high on her list of options.