Junior Medical Officers

[Bronwyn - Junior Medical Officer]

You can probably get a sense from the surroundings that it's a very unique place there's like oh, there's a tractor. How country.

I am Bronwyn and I'm a Junior Medical Officer working as a Psychiatry Registrar at Bloomfield Hospital in Orange.

I'm from Brisbane and I moved to New South Wales for medical school and through a number of country rotations it really sold me on country life.

What I love about working in a regional centre in Psychiatry is that you get a lot of hands-on experience that you wouldn't necessarily get in the city. There's fantastic mentorship with leaders in their fields, so I don't miss out on anything

It's a really special place for patients as well. We've got a lot of long-stay units here to allow patients the time and space to recover and transform their lives rather than just getting over the acute illness or stumble in their life.

My typical day, I get to start with a multi-disciplinary team meeting, which is nursing led and it's a nice relaxed way to start by listening to my colleagues and collaborating together. We can figure out who actually needs the time and space to be able to speak to us at length, rather than rounding on every single patient as other specialties tend to do. 

There's usually time and space in your day to be able to fit in everything including collaborating with your peers, a bit of peer review and support.

I think a lot of people can find mental health a confronting or depressing field but I actually have seen it as the total opposite, you can't really have general health and wellbeing without good mental health.

In psychiatry, the world is your oyster as far as building your career goes. Our understanding of the mind is improving all the time in psychiatry. We're kind of at a frontier of medicine really.

One thing that orange hospital is able to provide is not just a job but it's also a lifestyle and it's a community. It's a lot easier to have a good work-life balance, you can get home before sunset every day.

The next steps for me involves finishing my training and finding a consultant position in a hospital that is looking for a psychiatrist and that's one thing that's great about country practice is that there's plenty of jobs available.

My favourite part of my job is when we do get a win with the patient. It might be something as small as helping someone reconnect with their family members but those are really big things for me as a doctor.

You get to really make a difference in people's lives.

[On-screen text]

Make a bigger difference as a Junior Medical Officer in NSW.
health.nsw.gov.au/jmo-apply

[On-screen text]

Challenge yourself.
Make an impact.
Shape the future.

[Dr Budhima Nanayakkara, Director of Pre-vocational Education and Training - Orange Health Service]

The JMO experience in Western NSW

The breadth and depth of work that a JMO has to do is probably a lot more, a lot higher than they do in the city. In the city a lot of times the JMOs might act as paper clerks, but here we get them really actively involved in patient decisions, they can directly communicate with senior staff members and really make a big difference in the patient journey.

[Dr Katie Hobbs, JMO - Orange Health Service]

It's a great hospital, there's lots of different specialties. I found the environment really friendly and as a medical student, and I'm finding as a JMO, being rural has allowed me the opportunity to do a lot more see a lot more and interact a lot more with senior specialists as well as with my junior colleagues.

[Dr Lauren Bradbury, Medical Oncology Staff Specialist and Director of Physicians Training - Orange Health Service]

I think when you work somewhere big like Westmead or North Shore you're very anonymous, whereas here everyone seems to to know everyone it's very easy to get things done and call in favors and speak to a friend of the coffee cart if you need to.

[Dr Xavier Fitzgerald, RMO - Orange Health Service]

A smaller cohort in a smaller community out here. you get much more of the opportunity to pursue the things you're interested in but then also you get the opportunity to explore things that you might not have thought were something that you would enjoy, but then that comes up, so I think that I mean out here the management here and a lot of the doctors are just really happy to give you their time and just to help us like assist you to get to where you want to get to and I think that's uh is it that's special for out here and something that I've loved.

[Dr Budhima Nanayakkara, Director of Pre-vocational Education and Training - Orange Health Service]

We find that the social network here is pretty good, there's a lot of connection in between the JMO community as well as the registrar community and even with the specialist community that people don't find it as isolating as they think.

[Dr Lauren Bradbury, Medical Oncology Staff Specialist and Director of Physicians Training - Orange Health Service]

My trainees who are currently here at the moment from Westmead are just astounded at how friendly everyone is and how easy it is to get things done and order tests and get biopsies and that organised, so they're absolutely loving it here.

[On-screen text]

Challenge yourself.
Make an impact.
Shape the future.
Join us.
 

[Sirens wail]

You could have someone who literally is moments from dying

[Clock ticking]

and then you could be the person that ultimately saves someone's life. I don't think there's anything better than that.

[Khyarne - Junior Medical Officer]

My name is Khyarne and I'm an Emergency doctor here in Dubbo.

What makes me a good emergency doctor is that I like a fast-paced environment. I seek a challenge. Everyone that hits our front door,  you never know what you're going to get

I grew up in Dubbo and then made the decision to go to Sydney and study at the University of New South Wales. Through that time, I realised that I'm very passionate about rural and remote health, so that's sort of what drove me to to come home and what better place to come than your own hometown and give back to your own community.

Being an Indigenous doctor, I'm very understanding of the social aspects of health we are really setting the scene. We cater to a significant portion of Western New South Wales. We see people from remote communities who might be three and a half hours away from our base and so we already are having to start to coordinate their care.

We have to think outside the square sometimes and it makes the the medicine we do really interesting and rewarding.

Being a trainee here you get the opportunity to be hands-on straight away leading you know resus scenarios. You will be the one performing procedures.  You're obviously supported but you'll be the one actually guiding your patients care. I'm always upskilling, learning, growing as a doctor. 

My supervisors are very supportive, they all appreciate the the demand that our work life puts on us, so they're certainly there to support you and and make sure that you are doing okay.

Dubbo, I think is a fantastic place. We're in a great location but it's also just a beautiful community to live in. One of my favourite things to do is to find a nice little quiet spot down by the river, it's beautiful.

If you're very passionate about emergency medicine, you have a real opportunity to work with an amazing team and make a really big impact on your patients and their families.

[On-screen text]

Make a bigger difference as a Junior Medical Officer in NSW
health.nsw.gov.au/jmo-apply