For many junior doctors the pathway into a medical career begins with a desire to make a difference. Meet three Anatomical Pathology Junior Medical Officers (JMOs) working in labs across NSW Health Pathology and find out what they love most about their chosen specialty.

Dr Lisa Xie is based at our Rand­wick Pathol­o­gy Lab­o­ra­to­ry and describes her tran­si­tion from med­ical stu­dent to JMO with NSW Health Pathol­o­gy as a nat­ur­al progression.

“Hav­ing worked along­side many doc­tors with the NSW sys­tem as a med­ical stu­dent, I was already famil­iar with the clin­i­cal envi­ron­ment, cul­ture and train­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties,” she says.

For Dr Xie the appeal of pathol­o­gy lies in the intel­lec­tu­al chal­lenge it offers.

“Work­ing in pathol­o­gy has giv­en me a much greater appre­ci­a­tion of its vital role in patient care,” she explains.

“There is so much more than just look­ing down the micro­scope. Pathol­o­gy is a much more inte­grat­ed and com­mu­nica­tive spe­cial­ty than I had ini­tial­ly realised.

“It feels very much like putting togeth­er all the pieces to solve a com­plex puz­zle. Although much of the work hap­pens behind the scenes, it is par­tic­u­lar­ly reward­ing know­ing that it direct­ly sup­ports clin­i­cal decision-making.”

In the Orange lab­o­ra­to­ry in Cen­tral West NSW, Dr Hugh Gabor says his path into pathol­o­gy was shaped by a life­long inter­est in science.

After study­ing mol­e­c­u­lar biol­o­gy and ana­lyt­i­cal chem­istry, he went on to study med­i­cine before join­ing NSW Health Pathology.

He admits his under­stand­ing of pathol­o­gy has evolved sig­nif­i­cant­ly since he began work­ing in the laboratory.

“Even as some­one who had been inter­est­ed in this career… I held some fun­da­men­tal mis­un­der­stand­ings,” he says.

“Work­ing in it has def­i­nite­ly changed my view for the bet­ter and I look for­ward to con­tin­u­ing on the study and train­ing path to becom­ing a con­sul­tant pathologist.”

Dr Gabor describes pathol­o­gy as intense­ly cere­bral, pre­cise and cre­ative, offer­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties to think crit­i­cal­ly while con­tribut­ing mean­ing­ful­ly to patient care.

“You work as a prob­lem solver and inves­ti­ga­tor and your diag­noses real­ly mat­ter in med­ical deci­sion-mak­ing and patient tra­jec­to­ry,” he says.

“I con­sid­er myself extra­or­di­nar­i­ly lucky to have found pathol­o­gy as a career.”

Work­ing in a region­al set­ting like Orange has also been a highlight.

“The hap­pi­est times of my life have been spent in region­al cities. I would absolute­ly con­sid­er a career as a region­al pathologist.”

For Dr Angus Davie, who has worked in NSW Health Pathology’s lab­o­ra­to­ries in Tam­worth and Coffs Har­bour, pathol­o­gy offers a great mix of work/life balance.

“I enjoy that pathol­o­gists work some­what behind the scenes and are able to quick­ly and accu­rate­ly pro­vide clin­i­cians with a diag­no­sis so they can pro­vide the patient with appro­pri­ate treat­ment,” he says.

Dr Davie says the vari­ety and flex­i­bil­i­ty of the spe­cial­ty, from lab­o­ra­to­ry work and microscopy to mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary col­lab­o­ra­tion and research is a huge drawcard.

“Anatom­i­cal pathol­o­gy is an intel­lec­tu­al­ly stim­u­lat­ing and sat­is­fy­ing job. There are also numer­ous oppor­tu­ni­ties for research,” he says.

“The spec­i­men cut-up lab­o­ra­to­ry work­load in rur­al labs tends[LP2.1] to be low­er com­pared with met­ro­pol­i­tan labs, which leaves more time for prac­tic­ing report­ing slides.

“The ben­e­fits of train­ing in a region­al set­ting far out­weigh any neg­a­tives for me. At Coffs my com­mute is less than 10 min­utes, and I live close enough to the beach to swim in the sea before work.”

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