Lynne Coleman began work as a clerical cadet in the late 1970s at Royal Newcastle Hospital. As retirement beckons, she looks back on an incredible career that included an earthquake, a royal visit and the start of our statewide pathology service.

On 6 Feb­ru­ary 1979, at bare­ly 17 years of age, Lynne began her career as a Cler­i­cal Cadet at Roy­al New­cas­tle Hos­pi­tal – a hot­ly con­test­ed job at the time.

“I was one of 12 can­di­dates select­ed from 720 appli­ca­tions after an entrance exam and two rounds of inter­views,” she remembers.

“We were drilled in spelling, Eng­lish, maths, type­writ­ing, basic phys­i­ol­o­gy and med­ical ter­mi­nol­o­gy and made to recog­nise every form in use in the hospital.

“We learned phone num­bers by rote and were giv­en pho­tographs of key personnel.

“When I grad­u­at­ed from the Cler­i­cal Train­ing School I was assigned to the Per­son­nel Depart­ment before com­menc­ing in Clin­i­cal Chem­istry at Roy­al New­cas­tle Hos­pi­tal in March 1983.”

Lynne recalls that it was around that time she first met NSW Health Pathology’s Judy Kemp­ton-Webb and Scott Jans­son who were both work­ing in the Haema­tol­ogy Department.

“They were great times, a fierce but friend­ly rival­ry exist­ed between the two depart­ments. The Biochem Boomers (Chem­istry) and the RNH Clots (Haem) com­pet­ed against each oth­er at the annu­al Mat­tara Fes­ti­val Cor­po­rate Games.”

At the end of 1989 came the New­cas­tle earth­quake, and Lynne remem­bers unprece­dent­ed admin­is­tra­tive chal­lenges for staff as patients were relo­cat­ed to sur­round­ing hos­pi­tals with very lit­tle in the way of elec­tron­ic records.

“It was an incred­i­ble time. In the after­math, when the city was com­ing to terms with the destruc­tion, a 27-year-old me was cho­sen to meet HRH Prince Edward when he vis­it­ed RNH as the Queen’s representative.”

In 1990, Lynne became the Cler­i­cal Ser­vices Man­ag­er for what was then HAPS (Hunter Area Pathol­o­gy Ser­vice which lat­er became known as Pathol­o­gy North) and worked with some of the orig­i­nal lead­er­ship team at NSW Health Pathol­o­gy, includ­ing found­ing Chief Exec­u­tive Tracey McCosker, for­mer Chief Med­ical Infor­ma­tion Offi­cer Dr Stephen Braye and Maree Glee­son (for­mer NSWHP Board member)

In 2012 she was appoint­ed as Dr Braye’s Exec­u­tive Assis­tant when he was the Net­work Direc­tor of Pathol­o­gy North. Lynne moved to the New­cas­tle Office of NSWHP in 2017 when Stephen took on the role of Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Statewide Clin­i­cal Ser­vice and lat­er CMIO.

“That move took me back to the grounds of the old Roy­al New­cas­tle, so I had come full cir­cle,” she said.

“In 2018 I joined Judy Kemp­ton-Webb and her team in Pre and Post Ana­lyt­i­cal and Collections.

“In 2020 dur­ing COVID I found myself coor­di­nat­ing the pack­ing and dis­tri­b­u­tion of test kits, posters and request forms to sup­port our many col­lec­tion sites statewide.

“Col­lec­tive­ly there was some­thing in the order of 100,000 kits packed and sent from the New­cas­tle office.”

“I’ve lived through the tran­si­tion from man­u­al office pro­ce­dures to the tech­nolo­gies of today and seen the trans­for­ma­tion of pathol­o­gy from indi­vid­ual hos­pi­tal depart­ments into what is now a statewide pathol­o­gy service.

“I am for­tu­nate to have spent my life work­ing in Health, and par­tic­u­lar­ly with NSW Health Pathol­o­gy. It has afford­ed me the oppor­tu­ni­ty to live my life well, pro­vide for my fam­i­ly and secure my future in retirement.

“It has been an incred­i­ble jour­ney, with twists and turns along the way but one with many fond mem­o­ries made and friend­ships formed. The peo­ple are the back­bone of our organ­i­sa­tion and I am proud to say I have been part of such a com­mit­ted and pro­fes­sion­al team.

“Not bad for a kid who turned up on the wrong day for the entrance exam!”

Lynne tells us she will enjoy some much need­ed down-time as she begins her retire­ment but has plans to trav­el with a cruise or two and a trip to the Antarc­tic on her buck­et list.

Hap­py retire­ment Lynne – you will be missed!

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