After more than four decades in medicine including 20 years at NSW Health Pathology’s Royal North Shore Hospital laboratory, respected microbiologist Dr Robyn Hardiman is preparing to retire, leaving behind a remarkable legacy in infectious diseases and laboratory medicine.

Dr Hardiman’s remark­able career in med­i­cine has been guid­ed by a deep curios­i­ty, a com­mit­ment to excel­lence and a pas­sion for micro­bi­ol­o­gy that began decades ago at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Adelaide.

Grad­u­at­ing in 1985, she went on to com­plete physi­cian train­ing and advanced train­ing in Infec­tious Dis­eases at the Roy­al Ade­laide Hos­pi­tal. Even in those ear­ly days, the foun­da­tions of her future career were clear. 

“I enjoyed Micro­bi­ol­o­gy as an under­grad­u­ate and still have my micro­scope,” she said. “We actu­al­ly had to take our own micro­scopes into some exams.” 

Her ear­ly expo­sure to micro­bi­ol­o­gy at Adelaide’s Insti­tute of Med­ical and Vet­eri­nary Sci­ence (IMVS) cement­ed a life­long pas­sion for the spe­cial­ty. 

“I recall jars of pot­ting mix lin­ing the walls of one office as part of ear­ly research into Legionel­la long­beachae,” Dr Hardi­man said. 

“That curios­i­ty and inves­tiga­tive nature of micro­bi­ol­o­gy always stayed with me.”

Dr Hardi­man start­ed her pathol­o­gy train­ing in 1992 as a Micro­bi­ol­o­gy Reg­is­trar at the for­mer Roy­al Alexan­dra Hos­pi­tal for Chil­dren before com­plet­ing her FRCPA train­ing at Roy­al North Shore Hos­pi­tal from 1993 to 1995. 

Her career includ­ed spe­cial­ist roles across sev­er­al major Syd­ney hos­pi­tals includ­ing The Children’s Hos­pi­tal at West­mead, pri­vate pathol­o­gy providers and Prince of Wales Hos­pi­tal in Rand­wick, where she served as Head of Depart­ment of Infec­tious Diseases. 

She also under­took a mem­o­rable place­ment in Papua New Guinea as a Vis­it­ing Spe­cial­ist at Non­ga Base Hos­pi­tal in Rabaul through the AusAID Med­ical Offi­cer, Nurs­ing and Allied Health Project (MONAHP), an oppor­tu­ni­ty that broad­ened both her clin­i­cal exper­tise and glob­al per­spec­tive. 

In 2005, after leav­ing Prince of Wales Hos­pi­tal, she returned to Roy­al North Shore Hos­pi­tal as a Senior Staff Spe­cial­ist in Micro­bi­ol­o­gy, where she has remained ever since. 

Over her 41-year career, Dr Hardi­man has wit­nessed extra­or­di­nary advances in med­i­cine and lab­o­ra­to­ry sci­ence. 

Among the most sig­nif­i­cant devel­op­ments were pre­ci­sion med­i­cine and rapid technologies.

“It’s been incred­i­ble to wit­ness the emer­gence of per­son­alised can­cer ther­a­pies, major advances in HIV and viral hepati­tis treat­ment, and the rapid inte­gra­tion of PCR diag­nos­tic tech­nolo­gies into every­day clin­i­cal practice.

“The wide­spread use of rapid PCR test­ing dur­ing COVID-19 pan­dem­ic demon­strat­ed just how far lab­o­ra­to­ry med­i­cine has evolved,” she said.

“We’ve also had to face grow­ing chal­lenges includ­ing antimi­cro­bial resis­tance, emerg­ing viral pathogens and increas­ing rates of seri­ous fun­gal infections.”

Despite all the sci­en­tif­ic and tech­no­log­i­cal advances, Dr Hardi­man says the great­est high­light of her career has always been the peo­ple she worked alongside.

“I’ve had the priv­i­lege of work­ing with so many ded­i­cat­ed health pro­fes­sion­als, espe­cial­ly skilled lab­o­ra­to­ry staff who taught me so much about lab­o­ra­to­ry med­i­cine,” she said.

“I’ve also val­ued the oppor­tu­ni­ty to meet and learn from col­leagues around the world through con­fer­ences and train­ing. What­ev­er the glob­al sit­u­a­tion, I’m con­fi­dent I’ll con­tin­ue learn­ing from new expe­ri­ences,” she said.

Reflect­ing on her career, Dr Hardi­man says she feels grate­ful for the oppor­tu­ni­ties med­i­cine has provided.

“I will always be grate­ful for the fab­u­lous train­ing and career I have been able to have in our incred­i­ble country.”

North­ern Syd­ney Local Pathol­o­gy Direc­tor Dr Bernie Hud­son paid trib­ute to Dr Hardiman’s won­der­ful work eth­ic and com­pas­sion­ate, patient-cen­tred care.

“I have worked along­side Robyn dur­ing her time at Roy­al North Shore Hos­pi­tal. Robyn has always pro­vid­ed expert clin­i­cal care to her patients in a com­pas­sion­ate and ded­i­cat­ed man­ner.  Her con­tri­bu­tions to lab­o­ra­to­ry med­i­cine have assist­ed the growth of the lab­o­ra­to­ry test­ing ser­vices in North­ern Syd­ney Local Health Dis­trict and nation­al­ly, espe­cial­ly in the field of mycol­o­gy,” Dr Hud­son said.

“It is fit­ting that Robyn’s many years of ser­vice to NSW Health and the com­mu­ni­ties that we serve be reward­ed with a long, hap­py and healthy retire­ment,” Dr Hud­son said.

Con­grat­u­la­tions Dr Hardi­man and enjoy a well-deserved retire­ment. We will miss you!

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