Meet Lisa

Meet Lisa González, our Scientific Skills Development Coordinator.

 

How long have you been with the NSW Health Pathology?

My career in pathol­o­gy start­ed in 1993, and I joined NSW Health Pathol­o­gy in 1996. That’s a lot. I think the math is 30 years now in pathology.

I took on a mater­ni­ty relief posi­tion as a tech­ni­cal offi­cer in the micro­bi­ol­o­gy lab­o­ra­to­ry at Liv­er­pool Hos­pi­tal and then moved into a hos­pi­tal sci­en­tist role in 2009, still in microbiology.

 

How did you end up here? How did you get into the field?

It was pret­ty acci­den­tal. I want­ed to do law.

Home for me was Bal­main, Syd­ney; then my fam­i­ly moved to St Marys in West­ern Syd­ney, where I went to high school.

I chose physics at HSC, but soon dis­cov­ered I had no friends in the sub­ject. So many dropped out and switched to biol­o­gy instead. After dither­ing a bit, I too decid­ed to jump ship over to biol­o­gy, but I missed the boat, and the class was full.

How­ev­er, I did end up in a dif­fer­ent biol­o­gy class. My teacher start­ed an infec­tious dis­ease elec­tive and gave us an assign­ment where we had to research a dis­ease. I chose gon­or­rhoea, as any teenag­er would. I just loved the con­cept. It was the antibi­ot­ic sen­si­tiv­i­ty part that intrigued me the most, so that got me think­ing, and I looked up all the places where I could study infec­tious dis­eases. That’s how I end­ed up at UTS. I loved study­ing to work in pathol­o­gy, It meant I wasn’t going to be a doc­tor, so I did­n’t feel that pres­sure, but I got to help the doc­tor with a diag­no­sis and give results.

 

What is your cur­rent role?

I start­ed a sec­ond­ment as a “Sci­en­tif­ic Skills Devel­op­ment Coor­di­na­tor.” It’s a new role for NSW Health Pathol­o­gy. It’s a 12-month con­tract posi­tion, and I am based in St. Leonards at our 1 Reserve Road office.

 

Plans for the role: What are you work­ing on now?

My first pri­or­i­ty is to get a pilot grad­u­ate pro­gram off the ground for NSWHP mod­elled on a pro­gram offered in Queens­land. The aim is to encour­age stu­dents who have poten­tial­ly already done their place­ment with us as part of their degree to join us as the first step in their sci­en­tif­ic careers.

 

Do you have an anal­o­gy to help us under­stand your work?

I would describe myself as part foot­ball coach and part fairy godmother.

My role is to encour­age new grad­u­ates to join NSWHP and get the most out of their cours­es and training.

My focus is on new grad­u­ates who’ve just com­plet­ed four years with their heads in books and are now head­ing out into the pro­fes­sion­al world. For many, it can be super scary. How do you nav­i­gate the real world? What do you need for your first sci­en­tif­ic role straight out of uni­ver­si­ty? Many of them are try­ing to impress and prove them­selves straight away, but they need sup­port and guid­ance to work out what’s required of them in the work­place to succeed.

That’s what I’m here for. To coach and sup­port them in find­ing their rhythm in their new position.

When that’s up and run­ning, I’ll be their go-to per­son who helps them put the puz­zle pieces togeth­er. This is when the fairy god­moth­er per­sona comes into play. I will pro­vide that lev­el of sup­port and guid­ance for grad­u­ates to apply for posi­tions and make sure they know what they need to do, what respon­si­bil­i­ties they have, and what oth­er skills they need to devel­op. Essen­tial­ly, I am their cheerleader.

 

What moti­vates you? What are you pas­sion­ate about?

In my work, I get my moti­va­tion from see­ing peo­ple feel com­fort­able being them­selves. To see their authen­tic per­son­al­i­ty come through and see them view it as a strength, not some­thing to hide. Every­one has tal­ents, and if I can help them shine, it makes work so much more pleas­ant and a fun place to be.

I love get­ting to know peo­ple, build­ing rela­tion­ships, and work­ing out what they need from us to do their best.

 

What would you be doing if you hadn’t start­ed your career in pathology?

Ini­tial­ly, I thought I’d do law until I realised that was not for me—too much pressure.

I think I’d have end­ed up in a cus­tomer ser­vice role, work­ing with peo­ple in a the­atre envi­ron­ment, per­haps as an ush­er at the movies.

 

What makes you get up in the morning?

I get ener­gy from know­ing I might bright­en some­body’s day.

Shar­ing what I love with oth­ers and vice versa—others shar­ing their good things with me gives me a boost. I believe every­one likes to be noticed. No one likes to be invis­i­ble. For me, it’s that shared sense of con­nec­tion that makes it all worth­while at the end of the day.

 

What’s your favourite show or pod­cast at the moment?

I’m addict­ed to ‘Ted Las­so,” and though I’m a bit sad, I think I can see the end of the road. It looks like this will be the last season.

At the moment, I’m lis­ten­ing to the pod­cast ‘Good Life Project’ by Johnathan Fields. It has some great per­spec­tives. Oh, and any­thing by the Holy Trin­i­ty–  Brene Brown, Simon Sinek or Adam Grant. I love Brene Brown. I attend­ed an emo­tion­al intel­li­gence work­shop in 2021, and they showed an ani­mat­ed video of her on empa­thy. It tru­ly inspired me, and I’ve devoured every­thing she’s done since then.

 

What’s your secret talent?

Well, believe it or not, I’m a trained indus­tri­al seam­stress. It used to be called ‘gar­ment assem­bly’. I was 7 months preg­nant when I turned up to do my work place­ment. They sent me home “for safe­ty rea­sons” so I did­n’t end up get­ting the full qual­i­fi­ca­tion. Still, I know my stuff.

I used to make dance cos­tumes. I vol­un­teered once to make cos­tumes for a Latin dance com­pa­ny. I didn’t know what to expect when I said yes and found myself fran­ti­cal­ly mak­ing near­ly 200 cos­tumes. That was an eye-open­er for me, and my time man­age­ment skills were per­haps opti­mistic. I’m not sure how well-made they were, but I quick­ly worked out who my friends were!

I still do it for fun. I have an indus­tri­al sewing machine and over­lock­er and make cos­tumes for my fam­i­ly and friends. My daugh­ters all love to perform.

 

Fun facts about you

I spend my week­ends enjoy­ing the sun in my gar­den. We have an abun­dance of ama­ranth and limes about to come in. I love grow­ing our own win­ter veg­gies. Noth­ing beats fresh aspara­gus. But as win­ter comes and day­light hours are scarce, there’s less time to be out there, and it’s lack­ing some love right now.

I’m a ter­ri­ble cook, though. I’m cer­tain­ly not a tra­di­tion­al house­wife or home­mak­er in that sense, but I’m lucky enough to enjoy the meals my hus­band cooks.

I’m grate­ful for my chick­ens. I have sev­en chick­ens that lay fresh eggs every day. They’re so well-man­nered and don’t come up to the house unless we’re late feed­ing them. We have more than enough eggs for us, plus a few extra to on-sell.

 

Want to join our Pathol­o­gy fam­i­ly and start your career with us? Find all our vacan­cies at https://pathology.health.nsw.gov.au/careers/career-opportunities/

Wrangling head lice, and the children they infest, must be up there with the most challenging duties a parent or carer has to face.

Pri­ma­ry school-aged chil­dren, who seem to always be in close prox­im­i­ty to one anoth­er, are the most sus­cep­ti­ble to lice.

But by exploit­ing the screen-shar­ing and self­ie-tak­ing habits of tweens and teens, these lit­tle par­a­sites are find­ing more ways to spread.

And they’re no eas­i­er to kill off.

What are head lice and nits?

Head lice, known by their sci­en­tif­ic name Pedicu­lus humanus capi­tis, are tiny insects that are only found among the hair on a human’s head. They’re not found any­where else on the planet.

They scut­tle up and down shafts of hair. They have per­fect­ly designed claws, that look a lit­tle like cara­bin­ers, allow­ing them to move about how a rock climber uses guide ropes. They’re agile on our hair, but clum­sy once they’re off.

They don’t jump or fly. They move from head to head through direct phys­i­cal contact.

Our hair is their home but our blood is their food. Head lice feed on the scalp and have spe­cial­ly designed mouth-parts to suck out blood up to a half dozen times a day. It means child with an aver­age sized infes­ta­tion of head lice may give up less than 0.01 ml of blood per day.

When it comes time to lay eggs, that we affec­tion­ate­ly refer to as “nits”, the lice don’t want the more than 100 or so eggs they can pro­duce in a lifes­pan just rolling off our heads. They “cement” their eggs to the shafts of hair. It’s some of the best “super­glue” you can find!

Once laid, the eggs will hatch with­in a few days. With­in a week, the lice are ready to lay more eggs. The adult lice can live for up to a month if con­di­tions are right.

My child has head lice, should I be worried?

While close­ly relat­ed lice have been impli­cat­ed in the spread of some of the most dan­ger­ous and dead­ly pathogens to human health, head lice are much more benign. They’re annoy­ing but won’t make us sick.

Their bites may cause an itchy irri­ta­tion to our skin. Our bod­ies react to the sali­va they inject when they bite. In the same way we all vary in our reac­tion to mos­qui­to bites, the same dif­fer­ences result from lice bites. Some peo­ple will hard­ly notice them, oth­ers will be dri­ven wild with itchiness.

Health author­i­ties in Aus­tralia do not con­sid­er head lice a risk of trans­mit­ting pathogens that are harm­ful to humans.

There is no doubt they’re annoy­ing but per­haps the great­est health threat of head lice is to the health and well-being of par­ents respon­si­ble for their eradication.

Do we really need chemicals?

“Just kill them all, what­ev­er it takes” is a com­mon refrain among those try­ing to rid their chil­dren of the lat­est round of infestation.

There is a wide range of prod­ucts avail­able at your local phar­ma­cy to treat head lice. These prod­ucts should be reg­is­tered with the Ther­a­peu­tic Goods Admin­is­tra­tion and be assessed as both safe and effec­tive to use. Most of these prod­ucts are insec­ti­cides that kill the lice on contact.

How­ev­er, evi­dence seems to be mount­ing that some of these insec­ti­cides aren’t work­ing as well as they once did. Resis­tance in head lice to com­mon­ly used prod­ucts may be the result of their exces­sive or incor­rect use. The more lice that escape a treat­ment, the greater the chances of them devel­op­ing resis­tance in much the same way bac­te­ria are devel­op­ing tol­er­ance and resis­tance to com­mon­ly used antibi­otics.

Head lice are still sus­cep­ti­ble to alter­na­tive approach­es. Prod­ucts derived from Aus­tralian plants, such as tea tree or euca­lyp­tus, may be bet­ter than insec­ti­cides. But these are still chemicals.

All these prod­ucts should be used in accor­dance with the direc­tions for safe use.

A range of prod­ucts are mar­ket­ed as “repelling” head lice. But there is lit­tle evi­dence these are a reli­able way to avoid pick­ing up head lice from your friends or family.

Is there a chemical-free approach?

A strong rec­om­men­da­tion by health author­i­ties in Aus­tralia is to skip the sprays, creams, and lotions and embrace the “con­di­tion­er and comb” or “wet comb” method and phys­i­cal­ly remove the lice.

This is not just good advice for those not want­i­ng to avoid chem­i­cals, it over­comes hav­ing to deal with insec­ti­cide-resis­tant lice.

The steps in this process are rel­a­tive­ly straight forward.

To immo­bilise the lice, apply hair con­di­tion­er to the child’s damp hair. Then use a fine toothed “lice comb” to sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly work through the hair and remove adult lice. Reg­u­lar­ly wip­ing the comb on tis­sues or paper tow­el will reveal the dis­patched lice.

This approach works but must be repeat­ed twice, about a week apart, to break the life cycle of the head lice.

Head lice eggs are less sus­cep­ti­ble to treat­ment, no mat­ter what treat­ment you choose. As all the eggs will hatch with­in a week or so, repeat­ing treat­ments again and tar­get­ing the adult lice before a new batch of eggs is laid will pro­vide the best results.

The secret to effec­tive erad­i­ca­tion of the infes­ta­tions is patience and per­sis­tence. Per­haps a new prac­tice in mind­ful­ness?

Will our household ever be free of them?

Head lice are a nor­mal part of life for young chil­dren. It doesn’t mat­ter how clean and tidy your house is, you’ll inevitably have to deal with an infestation.

Fre­quent wash­ing of bed sheets, tow­els, and vac­u­um­ing floors won’t keep them away. Head lice don’t sur­vive long out of our hair so you’re unlike­ly to pick them up from car­pet, fur­ni­ture, or even shar­ing hats. They don’t float around in swim­ming pools either.

If a child has per­sis­tent infes­ta­tions and has an adverse reac­tion to the head lice, con­sult your local health pro­fes­sion­al. There are some alter­na­tive options, includ­ing some med­ica­tions, that may also assist in reduc­ing the bite reac­tions as well as the infes­ta­tion itself.

 

Cameron Webb, Clin­i­cal Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor and Prin­ci­pal Hos­pi­tal Sci­en­tist, Uni­ver­si­ty of Sydney

This arti­cle is repub­lished from The Con­ver­sa­tion under a Cre­ative Com­mons license. Read the orig­i­nal arti­cle.