The secret to recruiting new GPs? Selling them a better life. Just ask Soji

Rehoboth Tura Beach Medical Centre was pleased to welcome its newest general practitioner Dr Olusoji "Soji" Soogun (pronounced Shogun) on Monday, March 2.

With nearly 30 years of experience under his belt, Dr Soogun will bring a wealth of knowledge in patient-centred primary care to the Bega Valley's newest medical front line.

"I'm a family physician and I specialise in chronic disease, elderly care and palliative care," he told Bega District News.

"That has prepared me for a rural area like this.

"I believe that in anything, relationships come first, and a place where you can extend relationships to people will suit me more than just prescribing.

"Medicine is more than prescribing.

"It's about listening, building a relationship with the patient, and creating a long-lasting continuity with the community.

"That's why I came."

Dr Soogun is the fifth GP to join the growing medical team since the clinic's acquisition by Dr Emmanuel Beloved in early 2024.

"I came to Tura Beach two weeks ago and I started on Monday," the 58-year-old said.

"It's been wonderful.

"I have met nice people and when you look out the window you see the beach - it's therapeutic.

"My wife will be moving here.

"She had to quickly go back to finalise some things in her teaching appointment with the university, but she'll be back again for Easter, and my children will visit as soon as they finish their holiday."

To draw new doctors to the Sapphire Coast, Dr Emmanuel Beloved said he focuses on the lifestyle by pitching the warmth of a small-town community.

From paying for transport to scouting for childcare, Dr Beloved shared the extraordinary lengths regional clinics must now go to recruit doctors and secure essential healthcare for their towns.

"If you've not been to a place, you don't know what lies there," Dr Beloved said.

"I don't think anyone could visit the Bega Valley, see the environment and the ocean, and not love it.

"So I sell the community to them and invite them to come and have a look.

"We have to guarantee that we'll find them childcare. We'll help them get a house. We'll give you rental cars for two weeks.

"We have to give them incentives to allow them to come and see how beautiful it is."

It was this same strategy that led to Dr Olumuyiwa 'Muyi' Olowe joining the practice in May 2024, and Dr Madahvi Amarasinghe joining in April 2025.

"The time of waiting for three weeks is over. If anybody walks in today, they'll see a doctor today," Dr Beloved said.

The practice principal was no stranger to the transition from city to country.

Dr Beloved said he knew the cost of the "three-hour commute" all too well.

He was using that lived experience to persuade experienced doctors that Tura Beach was the cure.

As an international medical graduate, he recalled swapping the streets of Melbourne for a mandatory residency in the rural hub of Cessnock, after moving to Australia.

"I took a train from Melbourne to Sydney, then from Sydney to Maitland, then I'd go and join a bus to Cessnock," Dr Beloved said.

"But the one thing that struck me was that everybody on the bus was talking to everybody.

"Even me. They were talking to me, chatting me up, 'Hey, how are you? What are you doing here? Who are you?'

'And I thought, this place is different to Melbourne, where nobody cares if you're there or not.

"At the time, my children were growing up in primary school and in high school.

"I didn't get to see my children because I was out before they woke up, and they were asleep when I returned.

"I spent three hours every day in traffic. So after that, my day was wasted for nothing, and I couldn't even see my kids.

"But in the country, I could take them to school, pick them up after. I know what it was like. I've been there.

"So that's what I sell to new doctors here."