Michael Proudfoot is an accomplished all-rounder.
He’s not an all-rounder in the cricketing sense. He’s an all-rounder in the radiology craft.
He is the resident radiographer at Moree Hospital. He is an expert in his chosen profession and it hasn’t come easy - it has taken him about a total of 13 years of intense studying.
He is tall, humble and his knowledge-base encompasses the skills of about three people. He does it all - the computed tomography (CT), cat scans, ultrasounds, cardiac ultrasounds and mammography.
“All that provided by one individual is unique. I am a one-man band. To have skills and qualifications in all areas is unheard of,” he said with a sense of satisfaction.
While Mr Proudfoot is based at the Moree Hospital he doesn’t work for the hospital. He works for I-MED, Australia’s largest private diagnostic imaging network, which has centres in all major metropolitan areas and significant parts of rural and regional Australia.
“The only connection I have with the hospital is that we share a roof. The company I work for actually provides a service here within the community,” he said.
Mr Proudfoot, 52, set foot in Moree 14 years ago. He worked on a casual basis for four years before making Moree his home at Christmastime, 2000. He walked into town a single man and met and married local woman Belinda Houlahan.
The couple live on a lifestyle block at a little hamlet - Bendy Gleet - about 13km from the town centre.
Ironically, Ms Houlahan is never far away from Mr Proudfoot. She works as a data operator in the pathology department at the hospital.
“I like the western country and I like the western people and I like the western sunsets. It’s a lifestyle,” Mr Proudfoot said.
“I like what I do and am reasonably good at it. In a small community if you make a mistake the whole town knows all about it. I am my own biggest critic with my work. That is why it has to be done right.”
Half his work comes from outside Moree – including people from Narrabri, Wee Waa, Bingara, Warialda, Mungundi, Lightning Ridge, Walgett and Brewarrina.
The only centres that offer services like Mr Proudfoot’s are in Tamworth, Dubbo, Toowoomba, or Broken Hill. “I have got the bits in between.”
He has strong links to north-west New South Wales. He was born in Inverell and at the age of four moved to Brewarrina where his father worked for the council.
He made the excursion to Sydney when he was 18 and qualified as a radiographer four years later at the University of Sydney in 1979.
He worked at the Prince Henry Hospital in Sydney and then went on more study to expand his horizons.
Then he went on to work in Tamworth (16 years), Central Coast and Bathurst. “I didn’t settle well in Sydney. Philosophically I wasn’t built for the cities. Tamworth was too big for me and Bathurst was too big for me. So Moree sort of worked as a place where the town was big enough but also had a big enough area population to work. To do what I do, you need an area population of around 60,000 and that is what we have got here.”
Ms Houlahan has a daughter Courtney, 27, from a previous relationship and Mr Proudfoot has two children from his first innings - Matthew, nearly 27 and Hayley aged 23. The children all have fashioned careers of their own. “No-one lives at home. It is Belinda, me and two young Labrador dogs.”
He works about 50 hours a week and is on call a lot of the time. “I’d like to play more golf and go fishing.”
Another passion outside work is rugby union. “I play any position I fit.”
He loves to have a beer but finds it difficult to have drink outside hours “because you never know when the phone is going to ring.”
He was meant to holiday for the last two weeks but finds it difficult to find suitable replacements. “The people coming through just don’t have the diverse and broad range of skills to do the job.”
Mr Proudfoot also does oncology work which saves people a lot of travelling time.
“A lot of people in rural New South Wales and rural Australia don’t have access to services that I provide,” Mr Proudfoot said.
At least Moree doesn’t have that problem.
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