We’re getting to know some of our regional registrars. Here, we catch up with Dr Kate Osborne to chat about working in Coffs Harbour and why she picked pathology.

Dr Kate Osborne says she wasn’t even con­sid­er­ing a career in med­i­cine when she began study­ing under­grad­u­ate sci­ence at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Syd­ney but had no hes­i­ta­tion in decid­ing she want­ed to pur­sue pathology.

“Pathol­o­gy is just mag­ic! In my under­grad­u­ate sci­ence degree, I stud­ied Anatom­i­cal Pathol­o­gy, as well as elec­tron microscopy and light microscopy, and I just loved the com­bi­na­tion of sci­ence and med­i­cine that pathol­o­gy afford­ed,” Kate said.

“I thought, I don’t real­ly know what kind of doc­tor I want to be, but I know I want to do some­thing mean­ing­ful, and do research. Pathol­o­gy is at the heart of med­i­cine in both clin­i­cal diag­nos­tics and patient care.

“It is the absolute fun­da­men­tals of every­thing that we do in a hos­pi­tal. I believe the cur­rent sta­tis­tic is that about 70% of clin­i­cal diag­nos­tics are depen­dent on our pathol­o­gy lab­o­ra­to­ries, which is extraordinary.

“If pathol­o­gy stops, the rest of the hos­pi­tal stops.

“I love the fact that we can make such a big dif­fer­ence – even though there is this rep­u­ta­tion that we live in dark lit­tle offices in the base­ment, it’s a beau­ti­ful lab­o­ra­to­ry here at Coffs and a vibrant team of people.”

Kate began work­ing as a reg­is­trar at the Coffs Har­bour Anatom­i­cal Pathol­o­gy lab­o­ra­to­ry in ear­ly 2024.

She says it’s been reward­ing liv­ing and work­ing in a region­al setting.

“I did some immuno­his­to­chem­istry and slide prepa­ra­tion as part of my PhD research at Syd­ney Uni­ver­si­ty and RPA and they are huge labs. You might not even know every­one who works there,” she said.

“In Coffs, not only do you know all your col­leagues, but you also get to know a lot of the clin­i­cians you work with and attend mul­ti-dis­ci­pli­nary team (MDT) meet­ings with as well. It’s col­le­giate and feels warm and inviting.”

Kate said she also feels more con­nect­ed to patients and the local com­mu­ni­ty at Coffs Harbour.

Although pathol­o­gists rarely get to see their patients, Kate says she is very aware of them while working.

“I always try to be real­ly mind­ful that the tiny bow­el biop­sy spec­i­men that I get and trans­fer into a cas­sette, get processed and then report, that rep­re­sents up to 3 days of bow­el prep for a patient.

“They’ve had to get to the hos­pi­tal, under­go a gen­er­al anaes­thet­ic, arrange for time away from fam­i­ly or work and chil­dren, and then all the anx­i­ety as they wait for results.

“This 3‑millimetre lit­tle spec­i­men rep­re­sents so much for that per­son. The job we are doing is so impor­tant to give some­one a diag­nos­tic pic­ture so they can have bet­ter health and appro­pri­ate man­age­ment of disease.”

Kate says she’ll com­plete her train­ing in a larg­er met­ro­pol­i­tan lab­o­ra­to­ry but intends to come back to a region­al area in the long term.

“There’s so much we can do in region­al areas and there’s a gen­er­al short­age of pathol­o­gists of all types, not just anatom­i­cal, in region­al and rur­al Australia.

“It’s such a shame because it’s a beau­ti­ful place to live, and you get an incred­i­ble array of spec­i­mens, things you don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly see in large cen­tres because our patient cohort is so diverse. We reg­u­lar­ly diag­nose amaz­ing and unusu­al enti­ties that are quite inspir­ing to see as a reg­is­trar – and our pathol­o­gists have so much knowl­edge to share.”

Her advice to med­ical stu­dents think­ing about pathol­o­gy as an option?

“If you think pathol­o­gy might be for you – ask to come and vis­it a lab! See what we do first-hand and expe­ri­ence why it’s such an amaz­ing and priv­i­leged part of med­i­cine to work in.

“I’ve had med­ical stu­dents in the AP lab with me and it’s been incred­i­ble to teach and men­tor them. For exam­ple, I’ll open up a bow­el that has been removed for malig­nan­cy and they’ll say ‘Oh my gosh, is that what all the mucosa real­ly looks like?’ or ‘I had no idea that the mesen­tery attached like that’.

“They can see a tumour in situ and relate the anato­my in front of them to stag­ing and patient prog­no­sis. Med­i­cine feels so much more tan­gi­ble when they can see the diag­nos­tic mate­r­i­al in front of them.

“They’ll rub the inside of a gall­blad­der for the first time, and they’ll exclaim that ‘it’s so green and fluffy!’ It’s that sense of won­der that we need to con­tin­ue to inspire in our med­ical stu­dents and interns.”

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