Following his passion is ‘life-changing’ – rural award winner

Abstract

Most doctors can recall a career-defining moment of choice when events combined to offer divergent paths. For Kelly Gate, this year’s Rural Doctor of the Year, it was he declares dryly, ‘either fame and fortune, or peace and tranquillity’.

Today’s medical manager of the rustic Bethesda Hospital in far northern KwaZulu-Natal (no guessing his choice) is describing a moment two years ago when, fed-up with ‘catching fainting patients’ in Britain to pay off his student loan and on the verge of a registrarship at McCords Hospital in Durban, that telephone call came.

It was Mrs PS Khumalo, the CEO at the 222-bed Bethesda Hospital, begging her stalwart former community service officer (comserve) to ‘come help-out’ after her solo medical officer fell ill, leaving three wide-eyed comserves stranded in a sea of needy patients.