Eleven intern doctors have received a warm welcome at Port Macquarie Base Hospital.
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The interns have graduated from medical degrees and are starting their professional lives as new doctors.
Another cohort of eight interns, rotating from Royal North Shore Hospital, will start at Port Macquarie Base Hospital next week.
Intern Dr Lindsay Petterson, who grew up in Kempsey, was a hospital social worker for seven years before medicine beckoned.
She brings experience in a multi-disciplinary team and a hospital environment to her new role.
“Social work was really heavy on good communication skills and good patient care,” Dr Petterson said.
She is keen to become a rural GP.
“I think growing up in a rural area you are aware of the inequity in health care between metropolitan and rural areas and I certainly never saw a female GP growing up,” Dr Petterson said.
“If you are going to do a degree like medicine, you should take those skills and use them where they are needed.”
Dr Petterson said it was great to be back on the Mid-North Coast.
“I haven’t been here for 15 years so it’s a bit of a homecoming,” she said.
Dr Jamie Patel competed in the Ironman 70.3 Port Macquarie in 2015.
“What struck me the most about the half Ironman was the town coming together like one big community and there was hardly any part of the route that wasn’t supported,” the intern said.
Dr Patel, who was born almost a month premature in rural India, said he wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for medicine.
Dr Patel had a taste of rural medicine during placements at Wagga Wagga, Junee and Cooma.
The interns are amid a week of orientation ahead of their clinical terms.
Port Macquarie MP Leslie Williams welcomed the medical graduates on January 22 as part of a record intake of intern doctors funded by the state government.
Some 999 interns statewide, up from 992 in 2017, will start their new positions, representing the state government’s commitment to introducing new doctors into the health system.
Mrs Williams said more than $107 million had been invested into the statewide internship program to boost the number of doctors in cities and regional areas.
Mrs Williams said it was very exciting to see young interns coming to regional communities.
Pre-vocational education and training director Associate Professor David McDonald stressed the patient care emphasis.
“It’s about a commitment to the community and also to foster their training and opening doors for them,” he said.
The internship includes compulsory terms in medicine, surgery and emergency.