A BENDIGO doctor has been recognised for his long service to rural communities.
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Dr Middleton Nadarajah, from White Hills Medical Practice, was recently honoured at the Victorian Rural Doctors’ Awards in Melbourne for 35 years of service to rural communities.
Dr Nadarajah, a general practitioner who is known to his patients as “Dr Nad”, has been working in Bendigo since 1976.
“I first came to the Eaglehawk Community Health Centre,” he said. “I was there for four years and then shifted to White Hills and started my practice here.
“There’s myself and we have two other doctors.”
Dr Nadarajah was born in Sri Lanka, where he said the choice of university courses were either engineering or medicine.
He graduated from university in Kandy, Sri Lanka, in 1968.
“I first came to Australia in 1968 and I worked at the Geelong Hospital,” Dr Nadarajah said.
He was then recruited to a position in Papua New Guinea, where he worked in Port Moresby, Mount Hagen and Madang hospitals.
He lived and worked in Papua New Guinea for five years.
Dr Nadarajah said working in Bendigo had been very rewarding.
“I wouldn’t move from Bendigo,” he said.
He said rural doctors worked under different pressures to their city cousins.
“We see all sorts of different things and we have to keep up with the latest and the modern things and make sure our skills are up to date.” Dr Nadarajah and his wife, Indy, have two children and two grandchildren.
Their son Nim is an interventional cardiologist at St John of God in Bendigo and daughter Manja lives in California and works as mechanical engineer.
Dr Nadarajah is 70-years-old and plans to retire within the next couple of years.
“Probably in about two years,” he said.
“I’ll be looking forward to travelling and spending more time with the grandchildren.”