The enthusiasm and encouragement of Dr Bernie l’Ons is leading more young doctors to choose careers in pathology disciplines that are experiencing a significant shortage in Australia and across the world.

Dr I’ons is a rare and high­ly-regard­ed Spe­cial­ist Foren­sic Pathol­o­gist and Anatom­i­cal Pathol­o­gist at our Foren­sic Med­i­cine Wol­lon­gong service.

He spear­head­ed a 10-week pro­gram that lets young doc­tors work in these crit­i­cal pathol­o­gy dis­ci­plines before decid­ing their spe­cial­ist careers.

This year, two grad­u­ates of his pro­gram joined us as Anatom­i­cal Pathol­o­gy trainees, includ­ing Dr Erwin­preet Kaur who cred­its the ‘Bernie fac­tor’ for her choice.

Dr I’Ons said he had the priv­i­lege of work­ing with some amaz­ing young doc­tors in the pro­gram, sev­er­al of whom made major career shifts as a result, with one switch­ing from Psy­chi­a­try to Foren­sic Pathology.

In NSW there are cur­rent­ly four Foren­sic Pathol­o­gy reg­is­trars, and three of them came through the Wol­lon­gong pro­gram, includ­ing Dr Michael Chang who joined us last year and is a Foren­sic Pathol­o­gy reg­is­trar at our Foren­sic Med­i­cine New­cas­tle ser­vice (Michael’s broth­er, Dr Will Chang joined us this year as an Anatom­i­cal Pathol­o­gy reg­is­trar at Wag­ga Wagga).

“I think they see the chal­lenge, the val­ue and the joy of pathol­o­gy. In their term here they see that pathol­o­gy is intrigu­ing whether it’s Foren­sic or Anatom­i­cal,” Dr I’Ons said.

“They see dis­ease with their eyes, touch it with their hands, smell it with their nos­trils! They learn how to read CT scans, inter­pret a lot of data, under­stand dis­ease epi­demi­ol­o­gy, exam­ine and under­stand all sorts of pathol­o­gy, includ­ing brain pathology.

“They see the won­der­ful vari­ety of dis­eases and can begin to map out their role in this some­what hid­den and vast­ly under­rat­ed trea­sure chest of medicine.”

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