Married Western graduates find personal and professional fulfillment in rural medicine

She’s a specialist surgeon, he’s an emergency nurse-practitioner and midwife – and together they’ve found their professional and personal community in western NSW. Words by Katrina Lobley.

When Angelina Di Re and David Douglass met and fell in love while working at Blacktown hospital, it turned out they had something in common: they’d both studied at Western Sydney University.

Their paths, though, hadn’t crossed on campus. Angelina was part of Western’s first Bachelor of Medicine/Bachelor of Surgery cohort in 2007. “I was at Liverpool TAFE for the first year because the medical school hadn’t been built yet and then the Campbelltown campus,” recalls Angelina, who today also holds a Master of Surgery. “We loved it in our first year because we were a small cohort of students. We became very close and started a lot of things – there was a boot camp and I was also part of the newsletter. It was a lot of fun and many of us are still good friends and we’re still in touch to this day. When we graduated, we went on a trip to Fiji – out of 90 of us who graduated, 60 went on this trip.”

David, meanwhile, had completed his nursing degree at Western’s Parramatta campus and was working as a clinical nurse educator within Blacktown’s emergency department. An interest in aero-medical nursing later saw him take time out from educating to complete a Graduate Diploma in Midwifery – or “midi”, as he calls it. "I was always interested in doing aeromedical retrieval flight nursing and … in NSW, the only way to do that is [aboard] fixed-wing [aircraft]”.

His love of aviation runs so deep that “I was going to get my pilot’s license but then Ange said she wouldn’t jump in the plane with me” due to her fear of flying. “It’d be a lonely hobby so it scratches my itch when I jump in a plane,” he says.

Today he’s following his twin passions of nursing and aviation at Dubbo, a major regional city on NSW’s western plains where he and Angelina, who married in 2016, and their two young children live on a 2.5-hectare property. David splits his working life between Dubbo Base Hospital, where he’s an emergency nurse-practitioner, and the Royal Flying Doctor Service. “I’ve transitioned recently into a primary education role there but on the clinical side we do a mixture of flight nurse-only missions and retrievals with a medical officer that can be anything from acute coronary syndrome to trauma, as well as a lot of mental health,” he says. “Helicopters tend to do a lot more roadside trauma because they can land pad to pad whereas we need to land at an airport. It’s a pretty good office, that’s for sure.”

Angelina works as a colorectal and general surgeon at Dubbo’s two hospitals and visits Mudgee District Hospital. Dubbo, she says, has “great services like the Western Cancer Care Centre and state-of-the-art facilities”. “Patients come from Lightning Ridge, Brewarrina, Walgett – we’re the major referral centre and they’re from all different walks of life with different levels of health literacy,” she says. “I enjoy the pathology and the operating and the non-cancer side of things – what we call proctology. Haemorrhoids, anal fistulas and fissures are all very common.

“People probably think, ‘Oh, you’re a bum doctor’ but we do cancer work as well. Bowel cancer rates across Australia are increasing – it’s currently the third most common cancer – and we’re seeing younger and younger patients. We’ve had a run of cancer patients in their 30s with no family history. They’re shell-shocked - with one, we had to talk him through issues like sperm-banking and fertility.”

But what drew her to this specialty in the first place? “When I was a student, I had very good mentors who were colorectal surgeons as well – that played a part,” she says. Angelina is now in a position to inspire the next generation as she’s also in charge of general surgical rounds for medical students.

Some of her patients, however, initially “don’t realise I’m a surgeon, which is quite funny”. “I probably don’t fit the stereotype,” she says. “I’m 37 and I like my nice things and nice clothes – but you can still be girly and a surgeon if you want to be.” Outside of work, she enjoys Pilates, reading and Lego.

Angelina and David also have no plans to swap country life for big city lights. “I’ve had two kids in Dubbo and people are interested in you as a person and your family,” says Angelina. “They give you gifts, your colleagues and friends here become family, you see a lot of interesting stuff work-wise and you get to spend time with your kids and each other. We picked to come here - we enjoy the lifestyle and it’s a good community.”

Likewise, David says: “When Ange was first coming here for training, we never thought we’d live in Dubbo but the hospital is quite forward-thinking. It could easily rest on its laurels but there’s a crazy amount of pathology that you wouldn’t see elsewhere. Selfishly, I also get more of Ange in Dubbo than I would if we lived anywhere else.”

25 June 2026
Media Unit