Most people go to a doctor in their own town or suburbs. But people in the Australian outback can’t get to a doctor quickly. The nearest doctor is sometimes hundreds of kilometers away so they have to call him on a two-way radio. This special doctor is called the “flying doctor”. He visits sick people by plane. When someone is sick, the doctor has to fly to the person’s home. His plane lands on a flat piece of ground near the person’s house. Sometimes the doctor has to take the patient ...

Most people go to a doctor in their own town or suburbs. But people in the Australian outback can’t get to a doctor quickly. The nearest doctor is sometimes hundreds of kilometers away so they have to call him on a two-way radio. This special doctor is called the “flying doctor”. He visits sick people by plane.

When someone is sick, the doctor has to fly to the person’s home. His plane lands on a flat piece of ground near the person’s house. Sometimes the doctor has to take the patient to hospital. Flying doctors take about 8,600 people to hospital each year.

However, most of the time the person isn’t very sick, and the doctor doesn’t have to visit. He can give advice on the radio from the office at the flying doctor center. He can tell the patient to use some medicine from a special medicine chest. There is one of these chests in every home in the outback. Each bottle, tube and packet in the chest has a number. The doctor often says something like this, “Take two tablets from bottle number 5 every four hours.”

A man called John Flynn started the Royal Flying Doctor service in 1927. He had only one plane. Today there are 14 flying-doctor centers, 29 planes, 14 full-time doctors and several part- time doctors, nurses and dentists.

Which happens first?