This is a story about life; this is a story about death. This is a story about life, death and everything in between. This is Doctor Hilton Koppe’s story.
As a migrant to Australia, Dr Hilton Koppe, author of the newly-published One Curious Doctor, always felt like an outsider, dedicating big efforts to fit in as a young boy growing up in Sydney.
The feeling of not belonging, relentless in its presence, peaked when Dr Koppe moved from the big smoke to the Northern Rivers region in New South Wales to work as a general practitioner more than 30 years ago.
The amazing, terrible, wonderful, uncontrollable, unpredictable thing we call life wasn’t always easy for Dr Koppe. His grandparents were Holocaust survivors, European refugees between World War One and World War Two. His parents died prematurely from conditions modern medicine could not cure.
After completing his medical training in Sydney, Dr Koppe desired to work as a country GP, leading him on a 765-kilometre journey north of Sydney to the small town of Bangalow in the Northern Rivers region.
“In the 1980s, it was a really small, working-class country town, not like it is today, full of white linen and expensive giftware,” Dr Koppe said.
“It was really like being an old-fashioned country GP, caring for people, families, across generations, doing home visits to farms, opening cattle gates and then working, caring for people at the local hospitals.
“A real cradle-to-grave kind of medicine.”
Dr Koppe flourished as a medical professional working as a country GP, gaining irreplaceable experience, forming beautiful relationships and single-handedly making a difference within the Bangalow community, but not without a cost.
“It was great, but it came at a cost 30-something years later, caring for people at that level,” Dr Koppe said.
“It had a personal impact on me, and that is what stimulated me to explore that impact in this book [One Curious Doctor].”
In 2019, Dr Koppe was diagnosed with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), a mental health condition triggered by a singular traumatic event or conglomeration of traumatic events.
There are a number of contributing factors to developing PTSD, including past life experiences such as childhood trauma or sexual abuse, genetic factors, brain chemistry, and having a job that exposes you to repeated trauma, such as police, ambulance officer, firefighter or military, to name a few.
In Australia, about two per cent of adults experience PTSD each year, and about 12 per cent experience PTSD in their lifetime. Symptoms can vary over time or from person to person and include recurrent, unwanted distressing memories of the traumatic event, flashbacks, upsetting dreams or nightmares about the traumatic event and severe emotional distress or physical reactions to something that reminds you of the traumatic event.
For Doctor Koppe, working as a GP in a small country town in regional NSW was the best time of his life; it was also the worst.
“[Working as a GP in Bangalow] is two sides of the same coin,” Dr Koppe said.
“On the one side, it was just fantastic to be able to be involved in people’s lives; it’s a very privileged position, and there is an enormous amount of trust.
“So to be accepted into people’s lives and have that position of trust, it was really the making of me as a human being, as a person.
“I learnt so much from my patients and from those experiences, I would never change it for the world because it really was the making of me.
“But on the other side of that same coin is the responsibility that comes with that trust. I took that responsibility very seriously, and even though I did everything I knew to minimise the personal impact of caring for people over 30 years at a fairly close level, it chipped away at my sense of wellbeing, and in 2019, I was diagnosed with PTSD.”
One Curious Doctor explores Dr Koppe’s diagnosis of PTSD after a 30-year series of incidents, accelerated in the years before 2019 as his patients aged and mortality truly unveiled its merciless hand.
“Once I was diagnosed with PTSD and stopped working as a GP, I still kept doing the teaching work I’ve been doing, and it gave me the space to explore ‘Why did this happen to me?’” Dr Koppe said.
“Out of all the doctors I know, I did more to take care of my own personal wellbeing, like actually did it, and still it happened. So there’s this question, was it the vicarious trauma, was it through being a migrant, was it the intergenerational trauma or was it just my personality?”
The Gathering of Kindness, established by Professor Cath Crock and the Hush Foundation, has been hosted annually for seven years, aiming to improve health care through the arts and recognising kindness as a central tenet to human wellbeing.
One Curious Doctor by Dr Hilton Koppe is among the works of literature being promoted in the 2022 Gathering of Kindness, bringing Dr Koppe to Sale for a special book signing at Collins Booksellers on Friday, November 11, from 10am until 11am. Bookings are not required.
Whether you are a medical professional or just love a good book, One Curious Doctor is a heartfelt journey of a dedicated doctor as he explores the intricacies of PTSD and reminisces on the good, the bad and the ugly of a long career as a GP in rural NSW.
To learn more about Dr Koppe and his recently published book, One Curious Doctor, head to https://www.hiltonkoppe.com.
