Judith Burgess has been a friendly and familiar face around Hunter pathology labs and hospitals for over 40 years, and today we say goodbye and thank you.

Judith is retir­ing from her role as admin­is­tra­tion and data entry offi­cer at our John Hunter pathol­o­gy lab.

She’s seen and done a lot since her first day on the job at the Roy­al New­cas­tle Hos­pi­tal in 1980.

“I start­ed in 1980 at the Roy­al New­cas­tle Hos­pi­tal, doing a three-month train­ing school, then after we grad­u­at­ed we were put into dif­fer­ent depart­ments of the hos­pi­tal,” Judith explained.

“I was placed in the pathol­o­gy depart­ment by our teacher Miss Win­dross and I’ve worked here for the next 43 years, aside from tak­ing five years off to have children.

“I’ve always been told I have a good work eth­ic which I know I got from that ear­ly train­ing at the Roy­al many years ago.”

In that time, Judith has wit­nessed many changes in tech­nolo­gies and processes.

She has worked though many chal­lenges dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, which saw work­loads increase for every­one in health – espe­cial­ly for our hard-work­ing admin­is­tra­tion staff.

“There’s been a lot of change in the way we enter data, from very man­u­al ways to mak­ing way for the elec­tric type­writer, then onto computers.

“There have been many pro­ce­dur­al changes over the years which includ­ed deci­pher­ing doc­tors’ hand­writ­ing, remem­ber­ing test codes and pro­cess­ing over 300 request forms a day.”

Judith is look­ing for­ward to slow­ing down, trav­el­ling again, spend­ing time with her fam­i­ly and look­ing after her beau­ti­ful grand­daugh­ter Peggy.

She has been a friend to so many, a ded­i­cat­ed team mem­ber and will be great­ly missed.

Thanks for your incred­i­ble work, Judith and enjoy retirement!

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