‘You’re expected to manage anything’: Life as a doctor on a tiny island

Now and again, Dr McCoy gets word that O-negative blood destined for the island has been booted from a flight.
Rachel Fieldhouse
Dr Jodie McCoy, medical superintendent, Norfolk Island.

Dr Jodie McCoy was already working at Norfolk Island’s only hospital when she was a teenager, as a lifestyle officer at its aged care component.

She left the island in 1998, completing an RACGP fellowship and training at an Royal Australian Air Force base near Brisbane. She then completed an anaesthetist fellowship and worked as a consultant for five years.