Doug is a passionate Rural Generalist with more than 20 years’ experience working across rural, remote, and regional communities in Australia and abroad.
His career has taken him from Victorian ski fields to Tasmania’s rugged west coast, the Northern Territory’s remote communities, and even a solo practice in Vanuatu. Doug now works as a Consultant and Senior Medical Officer in the Emergency Department at North East Health Wangaratta, where he also supervises intern training.
A dedicated medical educator, Doug has served as Director of Clinical Training, Intern Supervisor, GP educator, and examiner for the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners. He’s passionate about supporting the next generation of rural doctors and believes that strong, hands-on education is key to building a safe, skilled, and sustainable rural health workforce.

Helen has worked in workforce planning, programs and policy for over 15 years with a focus on rural health workforce. She led the workforce planning and analysis that supported the early design and development of the program. Helen returned to VRGP in 2023 as the Manager. She is committed to working with stakeholders to further strengthen the VRGP ensuring we build and sustain a Rural Generalist workforce that meets the needs of rural Victorian communities.

Born and bred in the Loddon Mallee region, Kate was Medical Education Officer for 11 years at Echuca Regional Health where she worked as a Hub Administrator for University of Melbourne Extended Rural Cohort program with medical students. Kate understands the importance of Rural Generalists within communities and has a real passion for the VRGP. Kate has been with VRGP since its inception, commencing in the role as Statewide administrator three years ago, and has been heavily involved in the implementation phase of VRGP.

Dr Greg Coates is a salaried GP Anaesthetist at Bacchus Marsh Hospital (Western Health). Since 2012, he has been closely involved in Rural Generalist Anaesthetics (RGA) training in Victoria through education, supervision, and mentoring. In 2017, he was appointed Clinical Lead for RGA training with the Rural Workforce Agency Victoria (VRGP).
A Monash University graduate (1989), Greg has worked across a diverse range of rural and remote settings, including Christmas Island, Port Hedland, Stawell, Darwin, Cairns, Fiji, and Samoa.
Greg is a committed educator and network-builder. Over the past five years, he has facilitated more than 270 weekly online education sessions for RGA trainees across Australia, with over 9,000 cumulative attendances, helping to create a connected, supportive learning community for trainees regardless of college or location.
“It is a privilege to witness the next generation of rural generalists gain their skills, knowledge, and confidence. By building a vibrant online network, I am proud to say that trainee isolation is increasingly a challenge of the past.”

Dr Graham Slaney is a principal at Mansfield Medical Clinic and provides anaesthetic and obstetric services at Mansfield District Hospital. He has more than 30 years’ experience in training medical students and general practice registrars. His clinical and professional interests include obstetrics, anaesthetics, pre-hospital emergency care, acupuncture, medical education, and research.
Graham served as President of the Rural Doctors Association of Victoria from 2000 to 2002, during which time he was instrumental in negotiating an enhanced rural continuing medical education support package with the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services. From 2002 to 2004, as Industrial Vice President of the Rural Doctors Association of Australia, he worked with ACRRM to negotiate the Procedural Support Package with the Commonwealth Government, now known as the Rural Procedural Grants Program. He served on the board of the Bogong Regional Training Network from 2006 to 2015 and led research into GP retention in the region, as well as rural proceduralists’ role as the “hidden heart of rural and regional health.”
More recently, Graham led the 2022 Victorian review of obstetric training through the Victorian Rural Generalist Program and has played a key role in developing the 6+12 obstetrics training program with the Victorian Department of Health to support the future rural generalist obstetric workforce.

David has more than 30 years' experience in Rural General Practice, and currently provides Obstetrics and Paediatric services at the Wimmera Health Care Group. David has many years of experience in teaching, including Deakin University Rural Community Clinical School students, junior doctors and GP Registrars with both the ACRRM and RACGP pathways.

Shaneil is a FACCRM, having fellowed in 2022. He currently works as a Senior Medical Officer in Emergency Medicine in Northeast Victoria and is the Acting Deputy Director of Medical Student Education for the Wangaratta Campus, Rural Clinical School (University of Melbourne). He is committed to rural medicine and has been based rurally since moving to Australia from Zimbabwe in 2005. He has a strong interest in emergency medicine, establishing and maintaining training pathways for junior doctors in rural settings and medical education. He hopes to bring recency of experience to the VRGP role, having been one of the first groups of candidates to complete the VRGP.

Julie is a proud Gippslandian born and educated in the Latrobe Valley. She has more than 20 years' experience in the local health sector, having worked in General Practice, hospital, community health, government and GP training.
Julie served as a Director on the Gippsland Primary Health Network for nine years, she has a particular interest in medical workforce planning, quality primary care services located close to home and health policy.
With academic qualifications in health administration and rural health, Julie is passionate about rural generalist medicine and describes this as her most rewarding job yet.

Kim has lived in rural and regional locations of Victoria for all of her life and loves the rural lifestyle. She has worked in various industries throughout her career in management and finance roles.
She has spent 6 years as Practice manager in private practice, held a leadership admin position at a regional hospital and most recently 5 years as a GP Practice manager and senior leader in a rural health service in the Grampians region. She has a passion for the recruitment and retention of medical workforce to improve the health outcomes and create better equity for the region in which she lives.

Craig has lived and worked across the Loddon Mallee region for more than 25 years, following a 20-year career at executive level within the Employment Services industry. Throughout his career, Craig has built strong, collaborative relationships with colleges, training organisations, employers, and staff. His work has consistently focused on delivering meaningful services and creating opportunities that lead to improved outcomes for individuals and communities. These values led Craig to join the Victorian Rural Generalist Program in 2023. He is deeply passionate about Rural Victoria and committed to ensuring a well-supported, accessible, and highly skilled medical workforce for communities across the state.

Anna has lived and worked in the Western District of Victoria for over 30 years, working in human resources & finance roles.
With extensive professional & local lifestyle knowledge, Anna looks forward to helping trainees & local health services develop excellent outcomes in attracting, training & retaining quality medical practitioners. Anna is passionate about health care, believing the VRGP is crucial in supporting our region to develop multi-faceted, dedicated health professionals.

Hailing from North East Victoria, Joelene has worked in Medical Education and Medical Workforce Management for 9 years within the Hume Region. At the University of Melbourne, Joelene worked with medical students, managing the Extended Rural Cohort from the Wangaratta Hub. Joelene previously developed programs for Going Rural Health with the University of Melbourne to support medical, allied health and nursing students to complete placements across the Hume Region, working with a number of Universities and Health Services. More recently Joelene led the Medical Workforce Team at Northeast Health Wangaratta as Manager of Medical Workforce.
Joelene has a strong understanding of the challenges and opportunities of regional the training pathways. Having grown up and lived in North East Victoria, Joelene is passionate in growing and supporting medical workforce and improving the health care access and outcomes for rural and regional areas.

Merryn has worked in the Hume Region for 12 years in management and leadership roles in public health and local government and has a deep understanding of the issues faced by local communities in the region. In recent years, Merryn has been the Manager Medical Workforce at Northeast Health Wangaratta where she established training and employment pathways to support Rural Generalist training across the region, in partnership with the Rural Community Intern Training Program.
Merryn is passionate about working to increase employment of Rural Generalists and improve the healthcare of regional communities.

Sam is the program manager of the RG1 Gippsland program. She was born in the UK but migrated to Australia in 2001. Sam has a communications background and worked within rural health education, advocacy and communications for around 15 years before moving to Gippsland. She joined the VRGP Gippsland team in December 2019 and enjoys the opportunity to meaningfully support the junior doctors in the program. She hopes to play a small role in developing and supporting a sustainable health workforce for the Gippsland region. She lives with her partner, two kids, two cats, three sheep and eleven chickens and absolutely loves the lifestyle Gippsland offers her and her family.