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My name is Flight Lieutenant Amanda Gardner.
I'm a Medical Officer in the Air Force.
I'm a doctor who, on a day-to-day basis,
I do general medicine.
People have appointments, booked appointments, and come
see me for their general health.
I also I do aviation medicine and air medical evacuations
and also have had the opportunity to deploy.
I joined as a troop, as a clerk supply, and had a great
opportunity to do a bachelor of nursing
through the Air Force.
So I did that.
And then I was fortunate enough to have another
opportunity to do medicine.
So that's how I got here.
It was rather a long road, but I made it.
Aviation medicine is a sub-specialization of medicine
so that we have to examine and declare people fit to do
things such as fly a fast jet aircraft, pilot another type
of aircraft, air traffic control.
And there are regulations and standards that apply to
civilian as well as military operations that we
need to be aware of.
So that aviation medicine is done in Civvy Street, but they
wouldn't be certifying people to fly a Hornet, for example.
We certainly can do minor operations, minor procedures.
We have x-ray facilities.
We certainly have a lot of consulting rooms where we have
some specialists come in that people can make
appointments to see.
We have the outpatient's department.
So if you sprain your ankle playing touch football, you
can come in, and we can attend to that here outside of our
normal appointment hours--
I guess like a small hospital.
There's certainly an element of teamwork and camaraderie,
especially if you deploy.
So the people I just deployed with, you feel an obligation
to each other to support each other and to help each other
out and also to enjoy the good times together.
The deployment to the Middle East area of operations was
certainly one of the highlights.
It was like nothing here at all, so it's quite an
eye-opener.
The country that I was in invited a whole stack of us
and some of our coalition friends to this big dinner.
And it was this massive tent.
It was probably the size of four basketball courts.
So we were quite privileged to have been invited and
certainly had it all laid on.
I've got a huge sense of pride, being in the Air Force.
I feel like I'm doing my bit, if you like, for the country.
I do feel like I'm a public servant.
I'm part of an organisation that there's a
bigger picture to.
Yeah, and there's a sense of pride in yourself, because I
do things that I would never have done if I wasn't in the
Air force, well outside my comfort zone, things that I've
achieved that I just wouldn't even consider
attempting as a civilian.