MEDICAL graduates are set to start internships at the Orange Health Service later this month and junior medical officer Dr Shannon Townsend is ready to welcome them on board.
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Among the interns will be Sophie Dunkerton, Matthew McAlpine, James Sterrey and Victoria Jenkins, as well as Glenda Brown, who starts in June, who are coming to the hospital as part of the NSW Rural Resident Medical Officer Cadetship Scheme.
The scheme is funded by the NSW Ministry of Health and administered by the NSW Rural Doctors Network (RDN) for selected medical students who are committed to spending the beginning of their medical career in rural NSW.
Dr Townsend, originally from Dubbo, went through the same internship program in 2013 after graduating from the University of New England and has just completed her residential year.
Dr Townsend plans to stay in Orange for the next two years and said it was a great place to live, with the new hospital provided a great working and learning environment.
“I had always wanted to work rurally, I will eventually spend some time in an inner-city hospital, but I don’t want to start in one early in my career,” she said.
Dr Townsend will move into specialist fields this year and will spend the first six months working in the emergency department with the following six months spent in paediatrics.
However, she said the interns would not go into specialist fields yet and would get a wide range of experiences including medical and surgical.
She said the first few weeks were like an orientation where they get to learn their way around the hospital and meet each other and once they are allocated rosters they will work in a buddy system.
“They will have a really nice couple of weeks, I really enjoyed my first week,” Dr Townsend said.
“After the first week they go into working on the wards.
“It’s really good, especially if you don’t know what you want to do. “
tanya.marschke@fairfaxmedia.com.au
