There are plenty of strong and resilient women across rural and remote Australia, and Carol Godfrey is a wonderful example. Managing and living on a large pastoral property in South West Queensland, Carol Godfrey has seen it all. One day in 2011, when she had to move 500 cattle to a neighbours property, the cattle were released (by another person) too early and headed in the wrong direction. In her hast to ger her mustering helicopter into the air, she made a critical error...and was lucky to su...
Oct 08, 2025•46 min
To celebrate the recent release of Season 3 of the TV drama RFDS, we're re-visiting our Flying Doctor Podcast interview with renowned Australian actor, Stephen Peacocke - who plays flight nurse 'Pete Emerson' in the series. Stephen shares his memories of growing up in regional NSW, mustering cattle by motorbike on a remote station, becoming an actor, and - of course - his most recent work on the set of RFDS. He carried out his own research to prepare for the role, including talking with people w...
Oct 01, 2025•34 min
In a remote community some 175 kilometers from Broken Hill, a band of local volunteers are cleaning up after a Christmas event, when young Leroy Henderson’s life is changed forever… +++ Thanks so much for listening to the Flying Doctor Podcast. It is lovely to have you along on the journey with us. There has been some wonderful feedback from listeners and those we have interviewed. Word of mouth is always the best promotion for a podcast – so if you enjoy this podcast, or a specific story, pleas...
Sep 24, 2025•24 min
They were in the middle of the remote Birdsville track. Sandy dunes and red desert stony plains...and steaming hot thermal springs. Nigel climbs out of the 4WD for a rest break and then hears a scream like he has never heard before… +++ Thanks so much for listening to the Flying Doctor Podcast. It is lovely to have you along on the journey with us. There has been some wonderful feedback from listeners and those we have interviewed. Word of mouth is always the best promotion for a podcast – so if...
Sep 17, 2025•30 min
Opal miner, Richard Hawkins, lives in one of the harshest environments on the planet - Andamooka in remote South Australia. Though he knows well the protocols to prevent deadly dehydration in the extreme desert heat, Richard has learnt some lessons in recent years. **** We hope you enjoyed this special episode, which we’ve shared from our incredible archive of 140 Flying Doctor yarns! It is lovely to have you along on the journey with us and we look forward to bringing you an exciting new Series...
Sep 10, 2025•43 min
The first week in September is Jean Hailes Women’s Health Week - Australia’s largest event dedicated to the health and wellbeing of all women, girls and gender-diverse people. To celebrate and support Women's Health week in the bush, we'd like you to meet a very special Mum, who was interviewed by the Flying Doctor Podcast back in 2022! Kate Napier lived on a remote cattle station and was expecting her second child. She was supposed to move into town four weeks early, but life got in the way and...
Sep 03, 2025•42 min
RFDS Emergency Physician and GP, Dr Katrina Starmer, is a true inspiration within the field of rural and remote health care. This month, to celebrate Dr Katrina's recent 'Community Bush Champion' nomination at the National Bush Summit, we re-visit Katrina's fascinating journey to becoming an Outback Doc. From growing up in Townsville to fulfilling her childhood dream of becoming a part of the RFDS. In this episode, Katrina shares her experiences working in emergency medicine and as a GP in remot...
Aug 27, 2025•32 min
Rachel and Blake Bartlett were many months into a wonderful journey of travelling around Australia with their three kids in a caravan. While snorkelling on the coast at Coral Bay, everything changed when their 10 year old son Jackson was bitten by a shark. **** We hope you enjoyed this special episode, which we’ve shared from our incredible archive of 140 Flying Doctor yarns! It is lovely to have you along on the journey with us and we look forward to bringing you an exciting new Series 15 of th...
Aug 20, 2025•44 min
Dr Sally Edmonds talks of the RFDS response to the severe boat accident that occurred in May 2022 in the remote location of Horizontal Falls - where there was no access by road and some 26 patients had to be transported to hospital. **** We hope you enjoyed this special episode, which we’ve shared from our incredible archive of 140 Flying Doctor yarns! It is lovely to have you along on the journey with us and we look forward to bringing you an exciting new Series 15 of the Flying Doctor Podcast ...
Aug 13, 2025•50 min
As Joe and his instructor drifted down from 12,000 feet, it was serene and peaceful, until his parachute suddenly collapsed 10 storeys from the ground, and they plummeted... **** We hope you enjoyed this special episode, which we’ve shared from our incredible archive of 140 Flying Doctor yarns! It is lovely to have you along on the journey with us and we look forward to bringing you an exciting new Series 15 of the Flying Doctor Podcast this September! There has been some wonderful feedback from...
Aug 06, 2025•47 min
Gladstone warmth. Blue, blue day. Dogs, birds, horses and kids. Rachael is out for a pleasant ride with a friend but the unexpected occurs. **** We hope you enjoyed this special episode, which we’ve shared from our incredible archive of 140 Flying Doctor yarns! It is lovely to have you along on the journey with us and we look forward to bringing you an exciting new Series 15 of the Flying Doctor Podcast this September! There has been some wonderful feedback from listeners about our podcast and t...
Jul 30, 2025•37 min
Immense stands of Iron-Bark. Crisp sunny morning. 16 yr old David Donavon is checking for storm damage along the 15km boundaries of a remote property, but has no idea that shortly he will be gasping for oxygen and on a dash to save his own life… **** We hope you enjoyed this special episode, which we’ve shared from our incredible archive of 140 Flying Doctor yarns! It is lovely to have you along on the journey with us and we look forward to bringing you an exciting new Series 15 of the Flying Do...
Jul 23, 2025•46 min
Hot and sticky. Experienced Ranger is fishing in the Cape when a crocodile launches out of the water and mauls him, hundreds of kilometres from a hospital… Katrina Starmer, RFDS Medical Officer recalls the retrieval. **** We hope you enjoyed this special episode, which we’ve shared from our incredible archive of 140 Flying Doctor yarns! It is lovely to have you along on the journey with us and we look forward to bringing you an exciting new Series 15 of the Flying Doctor Podcast in September 202...
Jul 16, 2025•28 min
Young mother of two Michelle Dowsett suffered a shocking and confronting accident that stunned first responders. Michelle’s rare and life-threatening scalp injury required fast action to save not just her, but her unborn baby’s life as well! **** We hope you enjoyed this special episode, which we’ve shared from our incredible archive of 140 Flying Doctor yarns! It is lovely to have you along on the journey with us and we look forward to bringing you an exciting new Series 15 of the Flying Doctor...
Jul 09, 2025•22 min
After the safe arrival of her second baby, Poppy, Lil Bryant was anxious to return home from hospital to the peace and sanctuary of Mount Doreen Station - some 400km northwest of Alice Springs. Eagerly awaiting her return was her toddler son Dawson and hubbie Sam, along with Lil's beloved outback 'station family' of employees. But just nine days after Poppy's birth, Lil awoke in the middle of the night and immediately knew that 'something wasn't right'. Still half asleep, she turned on the bathr...
Jul 02, 2025•1 hr 2 min•Season 14Ep. 140
Ben Brooksby is in a good place. The fifth generation SA farmer - and founder of the Naked Farmer social media phenomenon - and his partner have just welcomed a beautiful baby girl into their family. And their passion and commitment to sustainable farming is literally blossoming before their eyes! But life wasn't always this good. As a young rural man, Ben tackled bouts of severe social anxiety and self-doubt. The tragic loss, by fire, of his family's homestead in 2016, felt like a dangerous and...
Jun 25, 2025•39 min•Season 14Ep. 139
New Zealand’s Fergus Gunn considers himself a very lucky man. He is still working in a job he loves, he has a great bunch of friends and a loving, close-knit family…and he’s alive! Because on the day he rolled a 4WD while checking fences on the remote NT property of Brunette Downs, back in October 2015, it was only thanks to a series of ‘lucky’ incidences that ‘Ferg’ made it through the day. After being discovered by a fellow station worker, who then raised the alarm, Ferg’s initial, lifesaving ...
Jun 18, 2025•35 min•Season 14Ep. 138
The stunning images and videos that WA cattle farmer Camille McClymont shares with her Instagram followers each week, perfectly capture the epic landscapes, red dust sunsets and daily farm chores of remote station life. Camille and her husband Jack, along with their young son Lachlan, manage some 16,000 head of cattle over many thousands of hectares - and their days are often spent mustering, checking fences and savoring every second of their time together. But Camille's isolated lifestyle wasn'...
Jun 11, 2025•33 min•Season 14Ep. 137
In this very special episode of the Flying Doctor Podcast, we're taking you on a remote rural road trip to the famous outback community of Broken Hill. And we have a Golden Ticket to one of the region's premier events! From Priscilla, Queen of the Desert to Mad Max, the remote red dirt region made world-famous on the silver screen is known as outback Australia's 'city in the desert'. It is also home to the largest RFDS base in Australia - operated by the RFDS's South Eastern Section - and provid...
Jun 04, 2025•38 min•Season 14Ep. 136
When Melbourne-born Dave Rogers first caught the flying bug as a teenager, he wasn't even sure where a pilot's license might take him. But after honing his skills and flight hours as an instructor - and then spending three years flying small aircraft over (and onto!) the most remote and treacherous landscapes of Papua New Guinea - today Dave is a highly respected RFDS Senior Base Pilot at Broken Hill, NSW. But what does it actually take to become an emergency retrieval pilot and what happens whe...
May 28, 2025•31 min•Season 14Ep. 135
From childhood memories of travelling the remote Kimberley landscapes of the 1960's, to arriving in a skirt and heels onto a remote WA airstrip in Kalgoorlie as a freshly minted RFDS Doctor, Dr Elizabeth Green's new memoir is an engaging, time-travelling treat. While Elizabeth was only 'officially' with the RFDS for two and a half years in the last 1980's, her love of medicine and the bush, along with a lifelong romance with her Flying Doc husband, Dr Stephen Langford, has gifted her with a swag...
May 21, 2025•49 min•Season 14Ep. 134
Many of us have probably dreamed of running away to a deserted island! But what if you actually lived on one, 365 days of the year? Ruby and Heinrich (and their toddler Lucas) are the full-time caretakers of Qld's remote One Tree Island. But as well as dealing with the daily and often extreme 'remote work' challenges of keeping an island - and all its visiting scientists - running smoothly, they are also the official custodians of an RFDS Medical Chest. There are around 3500 RFDS medical chests ...
May 14, 2025•33 min•Season 14Ep. 133
Trigger Warning: This episode contains content about suicide. "The black dog follows you...and hangs close on your flying skirts with hungry fangs". So said the ancient Roman poet Horace some 2000 years ago, as he struggled with his own 'inner demons'. Yet even today, despite our growing understanding around the science and prevalence of mental health issues, many rural and remote Australian's still wrestle with the social stigma and inter-generational pressures of THEIR black dogs. And for thos...
May 07, 2025•32 min•Season 14Ep. 132
When Sean Pollard felt something 'bump' his leg while surfing off the Esperance coastline back in 2014, he had no idea what had hit him. Until the 3.5 meter Great White Shark that was attacking him, came back for another bite. Seconds later, having lost an arm and his other hand, Sean realised his only chance of survival was to swim some 100 meters back to the shore...to his waiting girlfriend (and now wife) Claire. All the while, that same shark continued circling and waited for him to bleed ou...
Apr 30, 2025•43 min•Season 14Ep. 131
Simon Green isn't the first country bloke to put off going to the Doctor. But when an extremely rare and sinister tumour began snaking its way down his spine, time was not on the father of three's side. In less than four weeks, his symptoms morphed from mild discomfort to nerve tingling to full-blown paralysis of his lower body. With Simon's condition quickly deteriorating, his Doctors arranged an emergency RFDS evacuation to Newcastle. Later, specialists from around the world would consult on t...
Apr 23, 2025•24 min•Season 13Ep. 130
For many remote and rural country kids, the dream of one day becoming a Doctor is just that. A dream. Because the challenges of vast distances to school and study, a lack of mentors and the often-daunting University entry pathways can all seem insurmountable. But the founder of the Boots to Scrubs scholarship and mentoring program for young rural women, RN and fifth year medical student Chloe Campbell, is keen to change this view. As a remote, rural woman who also happens to be dyslexic, Chloe i...
Apr 16, 2025•42 min•Season 13Ep. 129
After experiencing a childhood filled with outback road trips, RFDS Policy and Advocacy Advisor Doug Wyllie carries the red dust of a million miles of the Australian outback in his veins. From the stories of wearing swimming goggles while his parents negotiated driving along an outback road without a windscreen, to the real-life RFDS rescue mission he launched on the remote Birdsville track, Doug shares his crazy adventures along distant 'tracks less travelled'. And this episode also comes with ...
Apr 09, 2025•41 min•Season 13Ep. 128
What to bring when you haven't got a thing? For those rural and remote families who suddenly find themselves aboard an RFDS flight to a faraway city hospital, having a few 'overnight essentials' close at hand can make all the difference. But it was at the moment when Kalgoorlie mum, Kim Luke, found herself in that very situation - with just her sick son's Batman Backpack with her on an emergency retrieval flight to Perth - that the idea of a 'Grab and Go Bag' came to her. But what makes Kim's ge...
Apr 02, 2025•35 min•Season 13Ep. 127
Sophie Smith is the proud mother of five boys. But three of her sons spent just a short, beautiful time in their mother's arms. Because triplets Henry, Jasper and Evan were born way too soon. Today, Sophie runs marathons with other mums across Australia, and she and her supporters have raised nearly $10 million through the Running for Premature Babies charity that she founded with her late husband, Ash. Because when Sophie's waters broke at just 21 weeks, Doctors told her that her babies simply ...
Mar 26, 2025•48 min•Season 13Ep. 126
The day before baby Indi's spectacular arrival aboard an RFDS retrieval flight had been a busy one for the Pawson household. Joelene's son, Jack, had celebrated his fifth birthday with friends and family and the young mum, at 31 weeks pregnant, was feeling understandably 'off'. Maybe the busy mother of three was just dehydrated and over-tired? But when her baby stopped moving, Joelene's hubby insisted they head to the hospital to get her checked out. Within hours, the couple would find themselve...
Mar 19, 2025•47 min•Season 13Ep. 125
