Dr Tricia Nagel loves the outdoors, working in the tropics and working with the Aboriginal people in Australia. She also loves the independence which is a characteristic of rural mental health work.
Having trained in Melbourne as a GP she left the city, travelled to India and South East Asia, then found herself in Darwin where she found her future.
"Dr Joan Ridley was the senior psychiatrist running the services in Darwin and she was a great mentor,'' says Dr Nagel.
"She developed them from an outpost to an up-to-date mental health service. We now have TEMHS, the Top End Mental Health Services. I work in Darwin as a clinical psychiatrist and in remote communities as a clinical researcher.''
Dr Nagel says that rural mental health means working in a setting which is generally far from urban settings and the resources that help to support mental health. On the plus side, it's more relaxed, there is the natural bush nearby, quieter streets, less air pollution and (in Darwin) beaches everywhere. But rural psychiatry has a different accent from city practice where many psychiatrists specialise." I am involved with Aboriginal people and urban non-indigenous families,'' says Dr Nagel.
"They are struggling with the pressures of life and work. Many are depressed and anxious. Psychotic illness such as schizophrenia is another concern for a smaller group in the population and their families. The other main issue for these people is substance misuse _ often cannabis or alcohol.
"This substance misuse influences their mental health and their ability to make successful changes, to reach the goals that they set for themselves in life.''
Her main aim as a psychiatrist is to develop the self management skills of the people that she sees so that they can become experts in their own wellbeing. This means recognising early warning signs of illness and stress and knowing how to make changes to increase relaxation and support during the tough times.
As well as being a consultant psychiatrist, Dr Nagel is an Associate Professor with Flinders and JamesCookUniversities; the head of the Healing and Resilience Division at the Menzies School of Health Research which accompanies her work in assisting people with self-management skills.
Darwin
is a very multicultural community. Dr Nagel works with Aboriginal mental health workers in her clinical research with remote communities and liaises with GPs in her Darwin practice.
"Cultural sensitivity is an ongoing learning process and is essential to successful work in a community such as this one,'' she says.
"After more than 20 years in the NT I have been told by my Aboriginal colleagues that I am improving. I am enjoying the opportunity to learn with colleagues who are supportive and leaders in their own right.''
Dr Nagel says that one of the great things about psychiatry is mutual learning.
"`It gives us the opportunity to learn from others about how they deal with the challenges of life, to share something of ourselves and to take those learnings into our work with others who are struggling, and with ourselves and our own families as we too face the ordinary challenges of life.''
