Closing the Gap

Closing the Gap

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Celebrating our people at Pathology Update 2024

Celebrating our people at Pathology Update 2024

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Staff at NSW Health Pathology took home a swag of awards and three of our scientific trainees graduated with a Fellowship of the Faculty of Science at Pathology Update 2024 in Adelaide.

The Roy­al Col­lege of Pathol­o­gists of Aus­trala­sia (RCPA) held its annu­al Pathol­o­gy Update 2024 in Ade­laide on March 1–3, attract­ing hun­dreds of del­e­gates and an array of local and inter­na­tion­al speak­ers. The theme of this year’s event, “Answers in Adelaide”.

NSW Health Pathol­o­gy would like to con­grat­u­late our three sci­en­tif­ic trainees who grad­u­at­ed with a Fel­low­ship of the Fac­ul­ty of Science:
• Nicole Bain from John Hunter Hos­pi­tal (Genet­ic Pathology)
• Julie Sher­fan from Con­cord Hos­pi­tal (Chem­i­cal Pathol­o­gy), and
• Xiumei Wei from Suther­land Hos­pi­tal (Immunopathol­o­gy).

A group of people, including wearing academic robes, smiling.
(L to R): Vanes­sa Thom­son, Xiumei Wei, Julie Sher­fan, Shailen­dra Gune, Prof Rob Lindeman

“A Fel­low­ship (or PhD) is the high­est qual­i­fi­ca­tion a sci­en­tist can attain,” explains Vanes­sa Thom­son, NSWHP Direc­tor Sci­en­tif­ic and Tech­ni­cal Strategy.

“It’s high­ly regard­ed and an avenue to sci­en­tif­ic lead­er­ship in the pro­fes­sion,” she said.

Spe­cial­ist Anatom­i­cal and Foren­sic Pathol­o­gist based in Wol­lon­gong, Dr Bernie I’Ons, was recog­nised by the RCPA as one of the Found­ing Fel­lows of the new­ly estab­lished Fac­ul­ty of Post-Mortem Imaging.

NSW Health Pathol­o­gy staff were also recog­nised with a num­ber of awards at Pathol­o­gy Update 2024.

Shailen­dra Gune, Senior Sci­en­tist in Cytopathol­o­gy at Liv­er­pool, received the pres­ti­gious Kon­rad Muller RCPA Out­stand­ing Teach­ing Award (Sci­en­tist) for 2023.

The Award is pre­sent­ed to indi­vid­u­als who have made an out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tion to the teach­ing of pathol­o­gy, in par­tic­u­lar the teach­ing of registrars.

Susi Guinane and Kyra Lyell from NSWHP’s Statewide Peri­na­tal Post­mortem Ser­vice received the Peri­na­tal Con­fer­ence and Edu­ca­tion Award, which will allow them to attend more pathol­o­gy relat­ed events such as the PSANZ con­fer­ence in New Zealand lat­er this year.

“This will allow NSW Health Pathol­o­gy to share the way the Peri­na­tal Post­mortem Ser­vice has been set up to help oth­ers look­ing to set up a suc­cess­ful cen­tralised peri­na­tal post­mortem ser­vice and to share the ups and downs of the NSWHP expe­ri­ence over the past 5 years,” said Susi.

RCPA Mer­i­to­ri­ous Ser­vice Awards were also pre­sent­ed to four NSWHP cur­rent and for­mer pathologists:
• Dr Ray­mond Chan – Roy­al Prince Alfred Hos­pi­tal, Head of Microbiology
• Dr Jan­ice Fletch­er – Prince of Wales Hos­pi­tal Genet­ic Pathol­o­gy (now retired from NSWHP)
• A/Prof Ragh­wa Shar­ma – West­mead Anatom­i­cal Pathology
• Dr Dianne Lit­tle – Foren­sic Pathol­o­gist (for­mer­ly of NSWHP Foren­sic Med­i­cine Lidcombe)

Micro­bi­ol­o­gy reg­is­trar at NSWHP-ICPMR West­mead, Annaleise Howard-Jones, won the DS Nel­son Prize for the best research pre­sen­ta­tion by a trainee. She pre­sent­ed her team’s work on the recent Mur­ray Riv­er encephali­tis virus out­break in Australia.

Pathol­o­gy Update 2024 kicked off with a ses­sion for trainees of the RCPA Fac­ul­ty of Sci­ence. Sev­er­al of our sci­en­tif­ic trainees and staff also pre­sent­ed oral and poster pre­sen­ta­tions at the conference.

Vim­lesh Dhir, Krys­tle Standen, Ani­la Hash­mi, Pra­bin Gyawali and Xiumei Wei were among sci­en­tif­ic trainees pre­sent­ing their research at the con­fer­ence on Day 1.

Dr Catri­ona Hal­l­i­day, Prin­ci­pal Sci­en­tist spe­cial­is­ing in Mycol­o­gy at West­mead and one of our sci­en­tif­ic lead­ers, was also invit­ed to speak on ‘Mol­e­c­u­lar in fun­gal diag­nos­tics (includ­ing der­mato­phytes)’ at the Mycol­o­gy Masterclass.

It was an out­stand­ing event, show­cas­ing the breadth of tal­ent and exper­tise of our hard-work­ing peo­ple here at NSW Health Pathology!

Meet Dr Vidiya Ramachandran – Clinical Trial Coordinator

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Dr Ramachandran has been working at NSW Health Pathology for over a decade. But alongside her passion for improving public health, she also has a love of dancing; Bollywood style!

Vidiya joined NSW Health Pathol­o­gy (NSWHP) for a year in 2005 to set up the TGA-licensed Nucle­ic Acid Test­ing (NAT) lab­o­ra­to­ry at the Serol­o­gy and Virol­o­gy Divi­sion (SAViD) locat­ed at the Prince of Wales Hos­pi­tal in Randwick.

Her move from aca­d­e­m­ic research to diag­nos­tic pathol­o­gy required not only a shift in mind­set but also an expan­sion of her knowl­edge base and tech­ni­cal skills.

In research, the focus is often on hypoth­e­sis dri­ven inquiries, explor­ing the unknown and push­ing the bound­aries in sci­ence. In con­trast, diag­nos­tic pathol­o­gy demands a pre­ci­sion ori­ent­ed approach, where the objec­tive is to deliv­er accu­rate, time­ly results that direct­ly affect patient care decisions.

She returned to NSWHP in 2012 and even­tu­al­ly became the Senior Hos­pi­tal Sci­en­tist in charge of the NAT lab­o­ra­to­ry, which won the 2023 NSW Premier’s Award for High­est Qual­i­ty Healthcare.

In 2021, Vidiya tran­si­tioned to her cur­rent role as the Clin­i­cal Tri­al Coor­di­na­tor for the Illawar­ra Shoal­haven region based at Wol­lon­gong Hospital.

“As a clin­i­cal tri­al coor­di­na­tor, I love the direct impact my work has on pub­lic health,” she says.

“Col­lab­o­rat­ing with diverse teams of pro­fes­sion­als allows me to con­tribute my knowl­edge while gain­ing insights from oth­ers in dif­fer­ent fields. The field of pathol­o­gy thrives on col­lab­o­ra­tion, draw­ing on the diverse exper­tise of pathol­o­gists, tech­ni­cians, clin­i­cians and researchers.

“More­over, I find per­son­al ful­fill­ment in con­tribut­ing to sci­en­tif­ic knowl­edge, know­ing that my efforts are improv­ing patient out­comes and mak­ing a pos­i­tive dif­fer­ence in pub­lic health.”

But when the lab coat comes off, Vidiya says she gets her danc­ing shoes on!

“When I am not busy coor­di­nat­ing clin­i­cal tri­als for NSW Health Pathol­o­gy, I trans­form into a danc­ing mae­stro, chan­nel­ing the vibrant rhythms of Indi­an clas­si­cal dance and the ener­gy of Bol­ly­wood,” she says.

“I am all about express­ing myself through the pow­er of dance and it is my ulti­mate hap­py place.

A woman dancing with her arms raised, wearing a traditional Indian-style dress.

“I start­ed learn­ing Bharatanatyam, an Indi­an clas­si­cal dance, at a young age age and kept at it all through high school.

“I am grate­ful that I can still pur­sue this pas­sion today. I also teach dance, and I love being able to share this part of my cul­ture and my love for dance with my students.

“Danc­ing is an excel­lent stress reliev­er and a superb way to enhance fit­ness,” she said.

She loves trav­el­ling, espe­cial­ly back home to Sri Lan­ka to spend time with her par­ents and enjoy her mum’s home-cooked meals.

Vidiya’s advice for bud­ding young sci­en­tists is simple.

“Put your­self out there for oppor­tu­ni­ties and embrace oppor­tu­ni­ties. Don’t be afraid to take risks, and fol­low your passion.”

Welcome to one of our newest recruits!

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Asraa Al Saadi struggled to find work after moving to Australia from Romania. An employment forum aimed at jobseekers from migrant and refugee backgrounds helped her to land a dream job with us!

Asraa trained as a doc­tor, but she had lit­tle suc­cess find­ing a role for years after arriv­ing in Australia.

In Octo­ber 2023 she attend­ed the Black­town Employ­ment Accel­er­a­tor event, putting her in touch with a dozen employ­ers, includ­ing NSW Health Pathol­o­gy, that were active­ly seek­ing can­di­dates across West­ern Sydney.

“All I can say is that a mir­a­cle hap­pened to me that day,” Asraa said. She met with NSW Health Pathol­o­gy staff at the Black­town event and went on to suc­cess­ful­ly apply for a job with the organisation.

Jes­si­ca Lee, Deputy Direc­tor Strate­gic HR & Projects at NSW Health Pathol­o­gy, says attend­ing the Employ­ment Accel­er­a­tor helped raise aware­ness of NSW Health Pathol­o­gy as a poten­tial employ­er with­in cul­tur­al­ly and lin­guis­ti­cal­ly diverse communities.

“Nor­mal­ly, we adver­tise either inter­nal­ly to NSW Health or exter­nal­ly via iwork­forn­sw and oth­er job boards,” Jes­si­ca said.

“We always pri­ori­tise the right cul­tur­al fit and the nec­es­sary skillset to per­form the role. By attend­ing the Black­town Employ­ment Accel­er­a­tor, we were able to tap into a tal­ent pool that may have pre­vi­ous­ly been overlooked.”

Jes­si­ca and the NSW Health Pathol­o­gy team had the priv­i­lege of help­ing sev­er­al can­di­dates, includ­ing Asraa, through the recruit­ment process.

As for Asraa, it wasn’t just the con­ver­sa­tions at the event or access to net­work­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties that inspired her – it was the sup­port she received from Jes­si­ca and Rho­da Kip­tanui, Head of Diver­si­ty and Inclu­sion, through­out the appli­ca­tion process that made a dif­fer­ence in land­ing her dream job.

People sitting at tables talking, near a NSW Health Pathology banner.
NSW Health Pathol­o­gy staff attend the Black­town Employ­ment Accel­er­a­tor event.

“This assis­tance pro­vid­ed me with some much need­ed men­tal and emo­tion­al clar­i­ty and allowed me to per­form in my inter­view,” Asraa said. “I have always dreamed of work­ing at West­mead Hos­pi­tal because of my love for the med­ical field and the prox­im­i­ty to my home – but the fact that it came true is unbelievable.

“I am more con­fi­dent thanks to their help and am work­ing towards my goals of mak­ing my kids proud of me – my dreams have real­ly become a real­i­ty,” she concluded.

Asraa is now work­ing as a tech­ni­cal assistant/pathology col­lec­tor (phle­botomist) at NSWHP West­mead, which is based at one of the busiest hos­pi­tals in the state. She is cur­rent­ly fin­ish­ing her pathol­o­gy col­lec­tor train­ing and is work­ing in the out­pa­tients depart­ment, but she’ll soon join the rotat­ing col­lec­tions ros­ter at NSWHP’s Auburn, Black­town and Mount Druitt Hos­pi­tal col­lec­tion centres.

Col­lec­tors like Asraa are the friend­ly face of pathol­o­gy, pro­vid­ing com­pas­sion­ate and reas­sur­ing sup­port dur­ing the some­times anx­i­ety-induc­ing sam­ple col­lec­tion process.

Find all NSW Health Pathology’s cur­rent job oppor­tu­ni­ties here.

‘Bernie factor’ boosts anatomical and forensic pathology recruits

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The enthusiasm and encouragement of Dr Bernie l’Ons is leading more young doctors to choose careers in pathology disciplines that are experiencing a significant shortage in Australia and across the world.

Dr I’ons is a rare and high­ly-regard­ed Spe­cial­ist Foren­sic Pathol­o­gist and Anatom­i­cal Pathol­o­gist at our Foren­sic Med­i­cine Wol­lon­gong service.

He spear­head­ed a 10-week pro­gram that lets young doc­tors work in these crit­i­cal pathol­o­gy dis­ci­plines before decid­ing their spe­cial­ist careers.

This year, two grad­u­ates of his pro­gram joined us as Anatom­i­cal Pathol­o­gy trainees, includ­ing Dr Erwin­preet Kaur who cred­its the ‘Bernie fac­tor’ for her choice.

Bernie fac
Dr Erwin­preet Kaur

Dr I’Ons said he had the priv­i­lege of work­ing with some amaz­ing young doc­tors in the pro­gram, sev­er­al of whom made major career shifts as a result, with one switch­ing from Psy­chi­a­try to Foren­sic Pathology.

In NSW there are cur­rent­ly four Foren­sic Pathol­o­gy reg­is­trars, and three of them came through the Wol­lon­gong pro­gram, includ­ing Dr Michael Chang who joined us last year and is a Foren­sic Pathol­o­gy reg­is­trar at our Foren­sic Med­i­cine New­cas­tle ser­vice (Michael’s broth­er, Dr Will Chang joined us this year as an Anatom­i­cal Pathol­o­gy reg­is­trar at Wag­ga Wagga).

Dr Michael Chang
Dr Michael Chang

“I think they see the chal­lenge, the val­ue and the joy of pathol­o­gy. In their term here they see that pathol­o­gy is intrigu­ing whether it’s Foren­sic or Anatom­i­cal,” Dr I’Ons said.

“They see dis­ease with their eyes, touch it with their hands, smell it with their nos­trils! They learn how to read CT scans, inter­pret a lot of data, under­stand dis­ease epi­demi­ol­o­gy, exam­ine and under­stand all sorts of pathol­o­gy, includ­ing brain pathology.

“They see the won­der­ful vari­ety of dis­eases and can begin to map out their role in this some­what hid­den and vast­ly under­rat­ed trea­sure chest of medicine.”

We welcome 35 new medical trainees

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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.

FM e1707968062304
New trainees dur­ing a vis­it to the FMCCC, Lidcombe

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.

New AP trainees Kate and Hamish
New AP trainees Hamish Carmichael (West­mead) and Kate Osborne (Coffs Harbour).

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.

AP trainees
Jor­dan Wiebe (West­mead) and Erwin­preet Kaur (Wol­lon­gong).

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.

Chang
New AP trainees Kevin Du (Gos­ford) and Will Chang (Wag­ga Wagga).

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!

Supriya Pradham (Coffs Harbour) and Maria Nguyen (St George)
Supriya Prad­ham (Coffs Har­bour) and Maria Nguyen (St George)

Seniors

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.

Three women and two men pose smiling at the camera while attending an event.
AP Train­ing Coor­di­na­tor Dr Lisa Park­er with RCPA Edu­ca­tion Offi­cer Kathy Robin­son, NSWHP Med­ical Work­force Man­ag­er Sam Veasey, Chief Pathol­o­gist and Direc­tor of Med­ical Ser­vices Dr Michael Whiley, and Med­ical Work­force Team Leader Joyce Wu.

Celebrating women’s impact in science: Prof Ruta Gupta’s story

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In honour of International Day of Women and Girls in Science, we’re shining a light on Professor Ruta Gupta and her incredible journey in medicine and science.

Pro­fes­sor Gup­ta, a Senior Staff Spe­cial­ist in NSW Health Pathol­o­gy, is the Clin­i­cal Direc­tor of the Depart­ment of Tis­sue Pathol­o­gy and Diag­nos­tic Oncol­o­gy at Roy­al Prince Alfred Hos­pi­tal in Syd­ney. Her exper­tise lies in the com­plex realm of head and neck can­cers, where her work extends far beyond diagnosis.

Anatom­i­cal Pathol­o­gists like Pro­fes­sor Gup­ta are med­ical doc­tors who exam­ine tis­sues to diag­nose dis­ease, pre­dict how dis­eases will progress and guide treat­ment plans cru­cial for patient man­age­ment. As a part of her work in head and neck can­cer, she is advo­cat­ing for HPV vac­cines for both boys and girls to pre­vent ton­sil can­cer. She is influ­enc­ing inter­na­tion­al med­ical prac­tices through her work devel­op­ing guide­lines used glob­al­ly for diag­nos­ing and report­ing head and neck cancer.

But her impact does not stop there. Last year NHMRC announced fund­ing for 14 new cen­tres of research excel­lence focus­ing on health issues of pro­found sig­nif­i­cance for patients and com­mu­ni­ties with a total invest­ment of $35 mil­lion. Pro­fes­sor Gup­ta is one of the chief inves­ti­ga­tors on the Cen­tre of Research Excel­lence to reduce mor­bid­i­ty of oral can­cer along with head and neck sur­geons, med­ical oncol­o­gists, cell biol­o­gists, bio­med­ical engi­neers and math­e­mati­cians. We wish this mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary team tak­ing on this ground­break­ing chal­lenge every suc­cess in their efforts.

Through her ded­i­ca­tion and inno­v­a­tive spir­it, Pro­fes­sor Ruta Gup­ta serves as an inspi­ra­tion for aspir­ing doc­tors and sci­en­tists – espe­cial­ly women and girls – to pur­sue their pas­sion for sci­en­tif­ic explo­ration and con­tribute to shap­ing a health­i­er, brighter future for all.

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NSW Health Pathology acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of the land across NSW whose cultures and customs have nurtured and continue to nurture this land. We would like to pay our respects to the Elders past, present and emerging, for they hold the memories, the traditions, the culture and hopes of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples across the state.

Aboriginal Workforce Development Closing the Gap

NSW Health Pathology acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of the land across NSW whose cultures and customs have nurtured and continue to nurture this land. We would like to pay our respects to the Elders past, present and emerging, for they hold the memories, the traditions, the culture and hopes of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples across the state.

Aboriginal Workforce Development Closing the Gap
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