The NSW Minister for Skills, TAFE and Tertiary Education Steve Whan visited our pathology laboratory at Royal North Shore Hospital during Skills Week 2024, where he announced a second round of government traineeships and apprenticeships.

As part of Skills Week cel­e­bra­tions this year, NSW Health Pathol­o­gy Chief Exec­u­tive Vanes­sa Janis­sen showed the Min­is­ter around our lab­o­ra­to­ry at Roy­al North Shore Hos­pi­tal (RNSH) where he met four of our new trainees and talked about how their trainee­ships are going.

In June 2024 NSW Health Pathol­o­gy wel­comed 21 new trainees under the first round of the state government’s 1,000 NSW Pub­lic Sec­tor Appren­tices and Trainees Program.

The intake tar­get­ed dis­ad­van­taged and mar­gin­alised com­mu­ni­ties, includ­ing peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties and First Nations people.

Our Direc­tor of Peo­ple and Cul­ture Dr Dean­na Paulin explains how this con­nects to our Peo­ple Strategy.

“We know that our peo­ple are their best when they feel like they belong. These trainee­ships are one of our key ini­tia­tives under our Peo­ple Strat­e­gy Pri­or­i­ty Out­come 6: Reflect­ing the diverse com­mu­ni­ties we serve,” she said.

“We are very excit­ed to sup­port our trainees who come from a broad range of back­grounds to have a reward­ing career in Health when they may not oth­er­wise get an oppor­tu­ni­ty to work.”

Trainees Richard Ruther­ford and Jaime Reyes are both based at the Roy­al North Shore Hos­pi­tal pathol­o­gy lab. Richard works at Cen­tral Spec­i­men Recep­tion and Jaime in Collections.

In Cen­tral Spec­i­men Recep­tion, all the pathol­o­gy spec­i­mens at the hos­pi­tal are sent through to the team for sort­ing and iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, data entry and dis­tri­b­u­tion to oth­er pathol­o­gy test­ing areas. In Col­lec­tions, our phle­botomists or col­lec­tors, per­form venepunc­ture col­lec­tions for a wide range of patients and pre­pare spec­i­mens for stor­age and trans­porta­tion to dif­fer­ent test­ing laboratories.

Richard lives with sev­er­al invis­i­ble dis­abil­i­ties that have proved chal­leng­ing while look­ing for employment.

He says the trainee­ship has giv­en him his first chance at some work experience.

“This is the first job I’ve had, and it’s been an eye-open­ing expe­ri­ence,” he said.

“I didn’t think I had the abil­i­ty to hold down a job before, but it’s giv­en me rou­tine and the con­fi­dence to know that I can han­dle the work. It’s only been a cou­ple of months, but I’ve proven to myself that I can do it.

“I absolute­ly love the team I am work­ing with here at Cen­tral Spec­i­men Recep­tion at NSW Health Pathol­o­gy at Roy­al North Shore Hos­pi­tal. They have been very wel­com­ing and sup­port­ive. My boss and a few of the peo­ple I work with in the lab have already offered to help me if I am strug­gling with my TAFE stud­ies, so that has also been a great con­fi­dence boost.”

For Jaime in Col­lec­tions, it’s been a chance to learn more about what blood col­lec­tors do.

“Pri­or to work­ing here as a trainee, my only knowl­edge of what blood col­lec­tors did was that they col­lect­ed blood for my local GP. I am now learn­ing there is a lot more to the job, but essen­tial­ly, it’s about work­ing with peo­ple and mak­ing sure they feel comfortable.”

Jaime also lives with an invis­i­ble disability.

“Through­out my time work­ing in casu­al jobs, I devel­oped a fear of telling peo­ple about my dis­abil­i­ty,” Jaime explains.

“I felt like I was a bur­den, risk­ing my employ­ment if I said anything.

“I under­stood that this job was very peo­ple-cen­tred and that was some­thing that strong­ly aligned with my own aspi­ra­tions to work with people.

“To be able to build rela­tion­ships where peo­ple could see me as some­one who was empa­thet­ic and helped them through get­ting their blood col­lec­tion done, this was some­one that I want­ed to be.”

Ernest Brinas is work­ing in our Cen­tral Spec­i­men team at West­mead Hos­pi­tal in Sydney’s west and sees the trainee­ship as an impor­tant step­ping stone in his career.

“I was hit by a car when I was 9 years old and have a trau­mat­ic brain injury that means I have trou­ble with body func­tion on my left side. I find it hard to stand or walk for long peri­ods of time,” he said.

“This has made it hard to hold down a job. This is the first job I’ve seen adver­tised where peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties were encour­aged to apply and I’m real­ly grate­ful this oppor­tu­ni­ty has come along.

“This trainee­ship has been great because I am able to sit and work at a com­put­er doing data entry for most of the time. The team at West­mead lab­o­ra­to­ry are very sup­port­ive and friend­ly and I am very hap­py to be work­ing in pathology.”

Mari­am Wadie is based at NSW Health Pathology’s Foren­sic Med­i­cine Ser­vice at Lid­combe com­plet­ing a trainee­ship in Health Admin­is­tra­tion. Mariam’s role includes work­ing at recep­tion at the Foren­sic Med­i­cine and Coro­ners Court Com­plex at Lid­combe, where she assists fam­i­lies who are attend­ing to view their loved one.

She says the expe­ri­ence has encour­aged her to fur­ther her studies.

“This trainee­ship helps me expand on exist­ing skills obtained from pre­vi­ous work expe­ri­ence and opens doors of oppor­tu­ni­ty as it is an entry into dif­fer­ent career paths,” Mari­am said.

“Whilst work­ing at Foren­sic Med­i­cine, par­tic­u­lar­ly as a recep­tion­ist, I have gained the con­fi­dence to make and answer phone calls and deal with dif­fer­ent types of peo­ple, which is a skill I did not have pri­or to this traineeship.

“I’ve been inspired by the amaz­ing Foren­sic Med­i­cine Social Work team in their approach and deal­ing with dis­tressed fam­i­lies. They are a great help and sup­port to those in need and in see­ing their work, I am inspired to be able to pro­vide that same sup­port for fam­i­lies. I can see myself tak­ing on the study of social work.”

NSW Health Pathol­o­gy is excit­ed to be help­ing to kick­start the careers of these incred­i­ble young peo­ple and our oth­er 17 trainees work­ing at our sites across the state and we’re look­ing for­ward to wel­com­ing a new cohort of trainees in the near future.

Topics