Meet Dr Supriya Pradhan who has been working at the Coffs Harbour Anatomical Pathology laboratory since early 2024.

“It was just by chance that I got into pathol­o­gy,” Supriya admits. “I worked in a can­cer reg­istry in India, and that real­ly piqued my inter­est in the subject.

“I enjoy the process of look­ing at slides and putting all the pieces togeth­er to come to a diag­no­sis. I’m work­ing in the back­ground but still a part of a patient’s journey.”

Supriya moved to Aus­tralia from India in 2018, hav­ing fin­ished med­ical school there in 2008.

“I feel real­ly lucky and priv­i­leged to be doing this work and that I get to visu­alise what is under­neath the sur­face, the cells of body and the many vari­eties of dis­ease process­es that can affect them,” she says.

“I see and learn so many new and inter­est­ing things every day. Pathol­o­gy is not just a ‘bor­ing desk job’ as peo­ple some­times assume.

“I worked with a stu­dent here in the lab the oth­er day and she was fas­ci­nat­ed with the work we do, because as med­ical stu­dents we look at slides, but we don’t always know much about the process that led up to that slide being under the microscope.”

Supriya says in her spare time, she enjoys being in nature and loves solv­ing puz­zles and read­ing mys­ter­ies and detec­tive novels.

“I think that’s part of why I was attract­ed to work­ing in pathol­o­gy. It’s all about work­ing out what is going on with a patient and solv­ing that puzzle.”

Supriya says she is enjoy­ing work­ing in the recent­ly refur­bished Anatom­i­cal Pathol­o­gy lab­o­ra­to­ry at Coffs Har­bour.

“Hav­ing grown up in a small Himalayan town in India with­in a close-knit com­mu­ni­ty, I always enjoy work­ing in region­al set­tings, where I feel my work has a larg­er and direct impact on the health ser­vices pro­vid­ed to patients.

“Dr Kate Osborne is the oth­er Anatom­i­cal Pathol­o­gy reg­is­trar here at Coffs, so we share the work,” Supriya explains.

“But we are work­ing direct­ly with the pathol­o­gists and expe­ri­enced sci­en­tists, so learn­ing from the experts them­selves, which is fantastic.

“We also attend week­ly mul­ti-dis­ci­pli­nary team meet­ings, that’s where the sur­geons, oncol­o­gists, radi­ol­o­gists, pathol­o­gists and a whole range of experts come togeth­er and dis­cuss cas­es, giv­ing input into the man­age­ment of a patient.

“It’s also a great lifestyle here in Coffs Har­bour. I have two kids and they enjoy being out­doors and going to the beach.

“If it was up to me, I’d do all my train­ing in a region­al area – but I under­stand that it’s also impor­tant to work in a big­ger area just to get the expe­ri­ence there as well.”

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