From an office perched on the scalloped edge of the continent, Victoria Bradley jokes that she has the most beautiful doctor's practice in Australia. Outside her window, farmland rolls into rocky coastline, hemming a glasslike bay striped with turquoise and populated by showboating dolphins. Home to about 3,000 people, a few shops, two roundabouts and a tiny hospital, Streaky Bay is an idyllic beach town. For Dr Bradley, though, it is anything but. The area's sole, permanent doctor, she spent years essentially on call 24/7. Running the hospital and the general practitioner (GP) clinic, life was a never-ending game of catch up. She'd do rounds at the wards before, after and in between regular appointments. Even on good days, lunch breaks were often a pipe dream. On bad days, a hospital emergency would blow up her already punishing schedule. Burnt out, two years ago she quit – and the thread holding together the remnants of the town's healthcare system snapped.