Senior Medical Officer Dr Shane Sadleir with anaesthetist Dr Dan Hook.
After 12 years in the Australian Defence Force and a health career that has taken him across the country, Cooktown’s Senior Medical Officer Dr Shane Sadleir returned home to lead a pilot program set to reshape how remote communities access bowel cancer screening.
From the military to medicine
Growing up in far north Queensland, Dr Sadleir always had his heart set on the military.
A life in uniform would take him out of Cooktown and around the world over his 12-year career.
He rose through the ranks to join the Special Air Service Regiment, the Australian Army’s elite special forces unit.
But after more than a decade of military service, he found himself in need of a fresh direction.
“I’d completed a two-month advanced battlefield medicine and trauma course,” Dr Sadleir said.
“When we were working away in another country, we’d take medical equipment and with the support of our military medics, provide basic primary health care to local communities.
“I kind of got a taste of being a health worker. We’d give antibiotics and treat wounds.
“I noticed the small impact this made, and it gave me a lot of personal satisfaction.”
He was hooked.
Soon, Dr Sadleir returned to the classroom, studying a degree in paramedical science and passing the graduate medical school assessment test. This facilitated entry into the University of Notre Dame Australia’s School of Medicine in Freemantle.
“I was 33 years old and one of the oldest in the class – we’d had my eldest daughter by then,” he said.
“My military career was vastly different, but I could change and adapt the skills I’d learnt in the force and apply these successfully.”
After finishing his internship, he made the decision with wife Kim to pack up their life in Perth and relocate to far north Queensland in 2019.
Improving care for remote communities
Dr Sadleir and his family established themselves in Cairns, where he spent the next couple of years as a Registrar in Cairns Hospital’s Emergency Department.
He later learned of an opening at Cooktown Multipurpose Health Service, offering the chance to work alongside a highly respected Rural Generalist.
It was the perfect opportunity to return to his hometown, continue his development as a doctor, and make a tangible impact on the community that raised him.
Dr Sadleir helped deliver a new low-cost endoscopy service designed specifically for remote communities.
The pilot program aimed to improve education and participation in the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program while reducing patient travel to Cairns for endoscopic procedures and surveillance from days to just a few hours.
“Bowel cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related death in Queensland, yet is highly curable if found early,” Dr Sadleir said.
“Previously, patients faced significant barriers, travelling hours to Cairns to do bowel prep and staying in shared accommodation.”
Because bowel cancer testing has significantly lower participation rates in rural and remote Queensland compared to the rest of the state, the pilot program was delivered through a partnership between Cairns and Hinterland, and Metro South Hospital and Health Services to close that gap.
It uses an ‘Olympus on Demand’ model with endoscopes arriving vacuum-sealed and pre-cleaned, allowing for immediate testing after use and removing the need for expensive sterilisation stations and highly specialised cleaning staff.
Patients can complete their prep at home with local community health support, come in for a couple of hours and then return home on the same day.
“This program solves three major problems at once: staffing, equipment and time,” Dr Sadleir said.
“Ultimately, it’s helping us catch potential cancers sooner.”
The pilot ended in April, with the program being taken on full-time by the Torres and Cape Hospital and Health Service.
A full-circle moment
Dr Sadleir knows the four-hour Mulligan Highway drive from Cooktown to Cairns by heart.
For five years he made the trip after every working week to be with his wife and three daughters living in Cairns.
His family is now with him in Cooktown after they made the move north earlier this year.
It means his three daughters are growing up in his hometown, where the family has completely fallen for the town’s laidback, tightknit community.
“Being back here and working in the community I grew up in, it’s a full-circle moment,” Dr Sadleir said.
“By providing this care closer to home for communities like Cooktown, we are going to increase early detection and ultimately save lives.”