Part one: Surfing Doctors Conference, Jawa Jiwa, G-Land
G-land is situated in East Java, Indonesia, on the southern coast of the island within the Alas Purwo National Park. Also known as Plengkung Beach. Jack Wilkinson reflects on his recent visit
Something is always moving in the G Land Jungle. The pace is hard to pinpoint.
Some things move with urgency – like the monkeys, frenetic in the canopies above the Jawa Jiwa Surf Camp, or a freight-training Speedies barrel hurling its guts over a sharp and shallow end section. Or even some poor folk’s lavatory dash (end sections also hurling guts, nod to Dr’s Duffy and Dave). Other things move more slowly – like the outgoing tide, gradually drawing water to expose the reef upon which the resident deer will graze, or the gentle sway of palm trees, or the drip of condensation trickling down a crispy cold Bintang.
Sun setting over G-land at the Surfing Doctors Conference, 2025.
Wave Of Your Life
With what to keep pace here, at times, is a challenge. With 4-6 feet of swell at a 16-second period greeting us for the first few days of the conference, and classic G-land trade winds, mathematically speaking, every 16 seconds, you’re potentially missing the wave of your life.
So, you should really stop sipping those Bintangs and be in the water. But it’s also important to relax. We all work hard and come from an array of challenging healthcare professions around the globe, so the annual pilgrimage is really about feet-up time as well. And in a tropical climate so hot and heavy, submersion in the near twenty-five-degree water offers little reprieve from the humidity, which is where the Bintangs come in.
Jack Wilkinson on a screamer, G-land 2025
If anyone’s mastered the Grajagan, or work-life for that matter, conundrum, it’s surely Dr Phil Chapman, the FACEM who founded the Surfing Doctors organisation.
Hailing from South Africa, he’s a commanding presence in the emergency department and surf scene of Western Australia’s Bunbury region. He surfs with a kind of gravitas that transpires to his teaching on land. Lessons given by someone who you’ve firsthand witnessed tuck under the lip of a steaming six-foot Money Trees keg naturally demand respect and attention.
The Great Leveller
Much of the teaching goes this way, I think, because we’re all surfers and the ocean is a great leveller of sorts, cutting through any sense of workplace hierarchy or intellectual snobbery that exists on land. In the context of a medical conference, this impact is noticeable in the conversations and connections that arise amongst consultants and juniors alike. Lessons are pragmatic and memorable, no ostentatious research papers or PowerPoints in sight.
Informal but effective. lectures and group discussions at the Surfing Doctors Conference, Jawa Jiwa G-Land
An example of this was the Favourite Recipe teaching session led by Dr Hamish Kent. Essentially, a group discussion in which we each took turns sharing a clinical pearl along with a culinary counterpart. Topics of discussion covered everything from managing an acute behavioural disturbance to c-spine precautions and difficult conversations. We also exchanged good grub ideas for after a busy shift.
Other topics of teaching included a fascinating talk on mountaineering and expedition medicine by Dr Marcus Stevens, a musculoskeletal masterclass by Dr Eamon Molloy, and POCUS session by Dr Scott Stirling. I gave a talk on locuming, inviting group discussion that tapped into the diverse perspectives in the room.
Beach Clean Up
Along with the teaching, we found time for a beach tidy-up, filling dozens of bags with washed-up rubbish from Kongs to Tiger Tracks. We’d sit around enjoying nasi goreng and campur for lunch, washed down with milkshakes by the wonderfully cheerful Jawa Jiwa staff.
Beach clean-up along the G-Land shoreline
There may have also been a few beers drunk, with some revellers swept up in the vortex one evening, ending up on the wrong end of a pair of clippers with some mean-looking haircuts to show for it.
A week later, as the conference concludes, a picture of the crew reveals more than a few burnt faces, peeling lips and throbbing pterygiums, but also a stack of smiles. Everyone left with a sense of gratitude, grateful for the moments of slowing down and unwinding, for all the unloading outpaced and reef cuts dodged, for picking up some new knowledge and connections, and for surviving the G land jungle, mostly intact.
Jack, racing through the inside at G-Land
Next: Friends Of Nias, Lagundri Beach, Nias.
Jack Wilkinson’s Surfing Doctors Profile