medical graduate interns join nslhd Northern Sydney Local Health District has welcomed
105 new medical graduate interns who joined the ranks of more than 1,000 new interns into the NSW Health system this year. The medical graduates, who have recently completed their medical degree, will now embark on a supervised year of practice and begin their journey to become medical practitioners. The new doctors have started their orientation and will be entering a training program that will also be networked with other hospitals throughout the state where they will be provided on-the- job education, training and vocational support. They will rotate between metropolitan, regional and rural hospitals to ensure the diversity of their experience and join different units in each hospital, including surgery and emergency medicine.
Some of the new interns starting at RNSH with CE Deb Willcox and Clinical Associate Professor John Vassiliadis
Some of the interns from Royal North Shore Hospital were welcomed last week by NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet, NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard and Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant. Northern Sydney Local Health District Chief Executive, Deb Willcox said it was so great to see the
next generation of medical professionals. “It was so wonderful meeting these bright enthusiastic interns who are so eager to learn and contribute to the public health system,” she said. “I wish them all the very best for a long and rewarding career providing high-quality care to our community.”
RNSH Pathology Team - Processing Tests Around the Clock The NSW Health Pathology team at Royal North Shore Hospital have been working around the clock to deliver PCR test results to the thousands of people who lined up for a test over Christmas and New Year due to the Omicron COVID-19 wave. staff members missing out on leave to fulfil the PCR testing demands. Diseases said that on top of processing thousands of tests, the pathology team also worked hard to prioritise inpatients, outpatients and result”, he said. Dr Bernie Hudson, Director of Microbiology and Infectious
“The team would often show up to work and see the ever- growing long line of people waiting to get tested and feel the pressure to process the tests as quickly as possible,” he said. “It’s the second year in a row the team couldn’t go on leave and celebrate the festive season. “There was enormous pressure on everyone to get through the tests.” Despite this, Alex and his team maintained an uplifting spirit about the team’s approach to testing. “The team never forget that although the sample is issued a lab number to track it through the system, they always know there’s a name behind it who requires a
staff to ensure the health system remained stable. This made it a challenging task to promptly provide results to the general population with many people needing a negative PCR test result to enter certain states. Only so many slots were available to be processed in one go, which caused unavoidable delays. “Unfortunately there were problems because people were needing a PCR test to get into states like Queensland, which ultimately put a lot of strain on the system, especially in our LHD,” he said.
The microbiology laboratory processed close to 82,500 COVID-19 PCR samples from 1 December 2021 until 20 January 2022. This was 25 per cent more samples than a comparable period during the height of the Delta outbreak. The recent outbreak caps off the tumultuous couple of years the RNSH pathology team has gone through due to COVID-19. Senior Hospital Scientist and Team Leader of Molecular Biology Alex Carrera, said the strain put on the team has led to many
WWW.NSLHD.HEALTH.NSW.GOV.AU
5
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online