THERE'S a motto in medicine: pay it forward.

"You finish your work so you don't give it to someone else to do, because they will then be delayed," says Dr Katherine Jeffrey, who is on her second rural placement this year, working in the emergency department at Bathurst Base Hospital.

With doctors on shift or on call every hour of the day, the resident medical officer says it is not unusual to stay on at work long after the scheduled finish. "You'll have periods where it's just work, eat, sleep and go back to work," Jeffrey says.

"It's very hard to socialise with your non-medical friends. They do normal jobs; they go home or they go to the pub afterwards and they can sleep on the weekends."

Jeffrey, who is single and in her 30s, says she tends to restrict her social life to activities that don't leave her tired for work. "So if you start at 8 o'clock and you're finishing between 10 and 11 at night, and you have to roll up at work in the morning, you have to balance how tired you'll be. A big social event can take a lot out of you."

Jeffrey says she has been away from family, social routines and friends for all but seven weeks of this year. "I don't have children at the moment, but I think, 'how will I cope with it, what will I do?'

"My feeling is it will be tough, but [there are] other doctors in the same situation, thinking they would like to marry and have children in the next couple of years and we are aware that we will have to balance work and life."

As a junior doctor representative for the Australian Medical Association, she says most doctors accept the reality of shift work, but need flexibility; in her case, taking regular time out to go sailing.

"You cannot exist in an industry where you're caring for people and not care for yourself."

Leesha McKenny