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A Victorian GP and his wife are using their entrepreneurial skills to attract doctors to rural communities and encourage international medical graduates to stay in the country.
IT was a combination of resilience and serendipity that led Dr Khaled El-Sheikh and his Brisbane-born wife, Kylie, to establish Tristar Medical Group five years ago. Now a corporate general practice success story, Tristar boasts 16 practices across rural Victoria and NSW.
Born in Cairo in 1965, Dr El-Sheikh immigrated to Australia in 1995 with Kylie, whom he had met and married in Egypt.
"At the time, hospitals weren't open to [accepting] overseas doctors," says Dr El-Sheikh, who specialised as a urologist. "I applied to over 100 hospitals until I finally was offered a place at Devonport Mercy Community Hospital.
"It was a huge shock [at first]. We left Egypt in May [when] it was very hot, to arrive in cold Tasmania. [We were] surrounded by big farms and cows compared to [Cairo], a city of 20 million people."
Dr El-Sheikh adapted and, more importantly, was able to train to use surgical and obstetrics skills in Devonport. However, after two years he realised there were limited opportunities to become a qualified surgeon.
He explained his frustrations to a former UK GP who was working in the hospital A&E at the time. The GP suggested Dr El-Sheikh become a rural GP.
"I hadn't thought about it until then because there is no general practice in Egypt [and] I wasn't aware of how GPs worked," Dr El-Sheikh says.
"The way he described it sounded exciting.
"So I went to a general practice in [WA mining town] Tom Price and enjoyed every single day. I used my surgical and obstetrics skills and even delivered my fellow GP's first baby. I fell in love with being a GP."
The love affair continued the next year when he moved to Warracknabeal, a wheat farming town 340km north-west of Melbourne, to be closer to Kylie's family.
But in 2003 Dr El-Sheikh's professional world came crashing down when the government closed Warracknabeal Hospital's midwifery and surgical services. At a crossroads and facing the unpalatable alternative of moving to a different town, Dr El-Sheikh decided to stay put and start "something else completely new".
"Everyone...