Pathology medical trainees are the future of our medical workforce and a crucial part of our organisation. 

There is a short­age of spe­cial­ist pathol­o­gists inter­na­tion­al­ly and across Aus­tralia and we are work­ing with NSW Health and the Roy­al Col­lege of Pathol­o­gists of Aus­trala­sia (RCPA) to recruit, train and retain the next gen­er­a­tion in all dis­ci­plines. 

Thir­ty-five new med­ical trainees began the new clin­i­cal year with us on 5 Feb­ru­ary 2024.

We have 22 in Anatom­i­cal Pathol­o­gy with 8 work­ing in region­al cen­tres at Tam­worth, Orange, Wag­ga Wag­ga and for the first time in Coffs Har­bour. In our met­ro­pol­i­tan lab­o­ra­to­ries, we have new trainees work­ing across Foren­sics (1), Immunopathol­o­gy (2), Chem­i­cal Pathol­o­gy (3), Micro­bi­ol­o­gy (7) and AP (14) at New­cas­tle, Gos­ford, Wol­lon­gong, Nepean, Roy­al Prince Alfred, West­mead, Con­cord, Liv­er­pool, St George, Prince of Wales and Roy­al North Shore.

In ear­ly Feb­ru­ary, our new Micro­bi­ol­o­gy and AP trainees attend­ed ori­en­ta­tion at the Roy­al Col­lege of Pathol­o­gists of Aus­trala­sia (RCPA) at Sur­ry Hills, the NSW Min­istry of Health at St Leonards, as well as tour­ing the Foren­sic Med­i­cine and Coro­ners Court Com­plex (FMCCC) at Lid­combe and vis­it­ing a pri­vate laboratory.

They heard pre­sen­ta­tions from NSWHP’s Med­ical Work­force team, senior trainees and RCPA Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer, Dr Debra Graves. Our Direc­tor of Clin­i­cal Oper­a­tions, Met­ro­pol­i­tan, Dr Louise Wien­holt, and Human Resources Man­ag­er Laila Has­san, also presented.

The NSW Pathol­o­gy Train­ing Pro­gram, run by NSWHP and the RCPA, is one of the most rig­or­ous in Aus­tralia. It takes 5 years to qual­i­fy for RCPA Fel­low­ship, with a strong empha­sis on aca­d­e­m­ic and prac­ti­cal learning.

We employ approx­i­mate­ly 120 junior doc­tors each year in trainee/registrar posi­tions across NSW, most­ly in Anatom­i­cal Pathology.

We’re also sup­port­ing exist­ing trainees in Haema­tol­ogy and Genet­ic Pathol­o­gy in their pro­gres­sion towards Fellowship.

Jor­dan Wiebe hails from Edmon­ton in Cana­da and is hap­py to be in Syd­ney despite (or because of?) the hot sum­mer! Erwin­preet Kaur enjoyed an Res­i­dent Med­ical Offi­cer (RMO) term in pathol­o­gy at Wol­lon­gong Hos­pi­tal before join­ing us as an AP trainee. She was inspired by the ‘Bernie fac­tor’: Dr Bernie l’Ons, a Spe­cial­ist Foren­sic and Anatom­i­cal Pathol­o­gist with our Foren­sic Med­i­cine Wol­lon­gong service.

We’re so pleased to see the enthu­si­asm of our new trainees. Will Chang (pic­tured above) is the broth­er of Michael Chang who start­ed with us last year as a Foren­sic trainee. We’d love to hear their fam­i­ly con­ver­sa­tions about who has the best job!

Thank you also to senior AP trainees Alice Ormandy, St George Hos­pi­tal, and Alexan­der van laar Veth, St Vin­cents Hos­pi­tal (pic­tured above) for their pre­sen­ta­tions to the new trainees.

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