Nowra doctor Michele Browne pens 'harrowing, hilarious' tales of Cook Island posting into a memoir

Young and optimistic, doctors Michele and Michael Browne left for Aitutaki in the southern Cook Islands in 1988 and spent two years as medical volunteers.

"Both sides of our family thought we were crazy to go to the middle of the Pacific Ocean to work in this incredibly remote setting where there was so little medical backup," Dr Michele Browne said.

Now, Dr Michele Browne has penned the 'harrowing' and 'hilarious' tales of their journey into a memoir: Beyond the Reef.

"The book's title comes from a reference in one of my letters to my parents in 1988 where I wrote, 'Sometimes it seems as if life beyond the reef is happening on another planet'," Dr Browne said.

Aitutaki had a population of 2300 during their posting and the workload was shared with one elderly doctor.

They took turns in looking after their kids, while the other managed the medical crises of the island.

There were frequent challenges as they attempted to keep people alive long enough to evacuate them from the island on commercial flights, if and when they were available, with a chronic shortage of even the most basic medical resources.

Dr Michele Browne said X-rays were even conducted with a Korean war machine.

"There was just a handful of blood tests that we could do. We also had a Korean war X-ray machine which was the only imaging we had on the island," Dr Brown said.

"We ended up running out of developing solution which we needed to develop the X-rays by hand. We were never sent any more, so for the whole second year we had no access to X-rays."

And yet, miracles happened. Dr Browne remembered treating a local tour guide who was epileptic and had fallen from a coconut tree.

"He had massive internal abdominal bleeding ... he was obviously going to die," Dr Browne said.

Planes only flew in and out of the island from Monday to Saturday. The incident occurred Saturday night, but by an "entirely miraculous" twist of fate, a New Zealand Airforce Hercules plane was sitting on the tarmac for a United Nations project on Sunday.

"We were able to contact the flight crew and ask if they could help us get the patient out for emergency surgery," Dr Browne said.

"Thankfully, they did ... but that normally would not have happened. That young man's life was saved."

As young doctors forced to think quickly with minimal diagnostic tools, Dr Browne said her and her husband became more confident in their practice.

"There's a little rule of thumb I've written in the front of the book, 'Some people will get better no matter what you do. Some people will die no matter what you do. Always do your best and take every opportunity to make a difference'," Dr Browne said.

"That basically summed up what we had to learn during that time."

Dr Michele Browne will launch Beyond the Reef at the Nowra Library on Tuesday, March 22.

The launch is free and will kick off at 5.30pm.

Register for tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/author-talk-michele-browne-nowra-library-registration-292156787817