The Round Up: A Medical Podcast
Join Dr Elissa Hatherly for a north Queensland-based medical podcast offering local content for local clinicians. Listeners will hear from passionate and knowledgeable clinicians discussing the approach and management of a diverse range of medical topics significant to our communities.
A network of medical training opportunities
We connect medical students, interns and junior doctors with resources and opportunities to prepare for specialist training and beyond, creating stronger health outcomes in our region.
Dr Tadiwa Mashavave, Junior Doctor, Mackay Base Hospital
“It was during my time at JCU that I decided I wanted to end up somewhere rural or regional and I thought I would be able to gain a lot of hands-on skills in my junior years at a regional hospital like Mackay Base Hospital. It’s been great working with other doctors who are as passionate about rural health and the people it serves.”
Dr Hannah Bennett, Rural Generalist and Pain Specialist, Townsville University Hospital
"As a consultant in Pain Medicine, I have excellent work-life balance. Townsville is a great place to raise a family and there's so much on your doorstep here. It's just an easy life.” Read More
Dr Anthony Brazzale, Cardiologist, Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Service
“We have advanced trainees who come from Brisbane and want to come back here now as consultants. They tell us this is one of the best training centres in Australia. The opportunities you get up here, you’ll get nowhere else.” Read MoreKeep up to date with our latest news & events!
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28 November 2022
Tackling health at population level
JCU GP registrar Dr Jay Short has been part of North Queensland’s public health response to everything from COVID-19 to monkeypox, bat bites, melioidosis, meningococcal disease, diphtheria, Hendra virus and Japanese encephalitis in 2022. In December, Dr Short becomes the first Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine (ACRRM) registrar to complete Advanced Specialised Training in population health in Townsville. Dr Short worked as a remote area nurse across Australia for 13 years before completing his medical degree at James Cook University in 2018. His deep knowledge of the region’s remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities has proved invaluable for the Townsville Public Health Unit, which manages multiple disease outbreaks concurrently across a vast area. Dr Short’s JCU supervisor, public health physician Dr Nishila Moodley, draws an analogy between public health specialists and the sci-fi secret agents of the Men in Black films. While the COVID-19 pandemic has elevated the specialty’s profile, much of their work still goes under the radar. “If we do our job correctly, no one knows we're there. That's why people don't know who we are. I always tell them, we're like the Men in Black,” says Dr Moodley. “In Townsville, we've never really had an alpha or beta COVID-19 outbreak because we had responded clinically to those individual cases so rapidly that infection didn't get a chance to establish itself here.”
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22 November 2022
An intern’s top 3 tips for medical students
Internship at Townsville University Hospital has been a first-rate training ground for aspiring rural generalist Dr Harjyot Gill. Dr Gill looks back on her first year as a doctor, her med school experience at James Cook University (JCU) and gives her top three tips for med students: “Internship is very exciting. Finally, you've made it, you're a doctor and you get to go to work and make a real difference to people’s lives each day.” “My first term was in ED, which was a great experience because you work up a patient from the very beginning. I found the emergency department offers a great opportunity to round out your knowledge and skills whilst rapidly assessing and treating undifferentiated patients in a time-critical manner. “My second term was in Charters Towers, as I'm currently on the prevocational pathway for rural generalism. My time in Charters Towers was probably the best so far. I was rounding on patients myself, discussing management plans with my supervisors and with their feedback I would enact the plan. “The type of experience or exposure I had in Charters Towers is unheard of in a tertiary setting. In rural communities you're doing a lot more, which allows you to develop your clinical decision-making skills. I felt like my knowledge and skills were growing exponentially as I was making my own decisions but in a very supportive clinical environment where the senior doctors were always there to guide me. “My third term was my surgical term, in gynaecology. My clinical elective in sixth year was also in gynaecology at Townsville University Hospital. The only difference was now as an intern I was getting paid to do all the things I loved as a medical student. I was assisting in theatre, seeing patients in clinics and on some occasions witnessing the magic of childbirth. It felt like I just picked up from where I had left off as a medical student in sixth year. “I’m currently on paediatrics. This is just a short elective for five weeks, and every second week I'm rostered on to baby checks. So just this morning, I was examining babies and squeezing in a couple of cuddles here and there, which always warms my heart. “Essentially, at this stage, I'm trying to complete all the prerequisites for the rural generalist pathway. Next year, I'll be rotating through obstetrics, anaesthetics, emergency medicine as well as another rural term and a relieving term. Beyond that, I'll be planning to apply to one of the GP colleges, whether it's ACRRM or RACGP, and deciding on an advanced skill I would like to specialise in. “Ultimately I see myself in a rural community with women’s health as a part of my practice. I would love to be a part of a community, and I feel like in smaller hospitals, you're able to know everyone in the team. In Charters Towers, by my third week I knew everyone in the hospital; I knew who was on the wards, I knew who was in admin, and who was in the kitchen.”
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10 October 2022
Reaching for balance with a passion outside medicine
Obstetrician and gynaecologist Dr Tiarna Ernst has a high-flying perspective on finding life balance, having trained in tandem as both a professional athlete and doctor. The 2011 James Cook University graduate, who grew up in Cape York, was drafted into the inaugural AFLW competition in 2016, winning a premiership with the Western Bulldogs in 2018 and continuing to play elite sport throughout her medical specialty training. “I knew for me, running out on to the football field was almost therapeutic and that I could switch off from the pressures associated with being a junior doctor,” Dr Ernst says. “I could just be a player and it didn't matter what I did outside of playing footy. I think that can be transferred into any area of interest; it doesn't need to be sport.” Dr Ernst will deliver the keynote closing address at the AMA Queensland Junior Doctor Conference, which is supported by NQRTH. She will talk about how to find purpose and passion outside of medicine. “My message for junior doctors to find something, whatever it is, outside of medicine that gives you balance in your life,” Dr Ernst says. “I think you need to find a passion. It doesn't need to be sport. It doesn't need to be physical. It could be analytical, it could be academic, but it needs to be something different outside of medicine. It needs to be something where you can switch off, you can forget that you're a doctor or a medical student, and just pour your energy into that thing. “I've got some colleagues who are very interested in music, others are interested in volunteering groups, climate change, things like that.”
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5 October 2022
Leading leaps in genetic research from northern Australia
Townsville nephrologist Professor Andrew Mallett is internationally recognised for his work in identifying new approaches, understanding and treatments for genetic kidney disease. The Bowen-raised James Cook University graduate returned to North Queensland in late 2020 as director of clinical research at Townsville Hospital and Health Service, becoming the first JCU Medicine graduate to be appointed professor of medicine. Prof Mallett leads the KidGen Collaborative, a national clinical and research consortium championing novel diagnostic and research pathways for patients and families affected by inherited kidney disorders. His multidisciplinary renal genetics clinic model operates in 18 locations across Australia. “Kidney health is a national quandary,” Prof Mallett says. “It's a massive need. At a national level today, there are something like 1.7 million Australians affected by kidney disease, and about a million of them don't even know it. Kidney disease disproportionately affects those in Northern Australia and in rural and remote areas. Wherever you practise, you're contributing to the greater good, but to do it here where there's clearly such need, I think is really important.” Prof Mallett is one of a handful of nephrologists in the country who specialise in genetic forms of kidney disease. “When I was doing my renal advanced training in 2011 to 2013, there was no one in Australia in that subspecialty area,” he says. After completing a Churchill Fellowship in the United Kingdom, France and North America, he focused his career on heritable forms of kidney disease. “It's an area in which there's a great clinical and research connection,” he says. “By understanding how changes in our genes may cause or relate to the development of kidney disease, we've got a really good chance of understanding how these diseases individually work, and that may lead to better treatments in the future. “At the same time, there's a great personal connection to patients, because many are seeking a diagnosis. What is the cause of their kidney disease? What is the type of their kidney disease? Both when I was a renal advanced trainee and before that as a more junior physician trainee and medical student, most of the time we didn't have good answers. Everyone seemed so comfortable with that, and I really wasn't. “A lot of my research is focused on the development and application of new genomic technologies to help patients in a clinical context to get those answers. We now understand that at scale, and it's available in clinics right around the county.” A key achievement has been the Medicare listing of genomic testing of patients with heritable forms of kidney disease as of July 1 this year. “It’s something that was aspirational and unthinkable five years ago,” he says. “It's been great to contribute in a research way to realising things like that at the same time as doing the research that underpins driving major clinical and policy change.” Now a teacher of JCU medical students, Prof Mallett started at JCU in 2001 as a 17-year-old fresh from boarding school in Brisbane and a holiday job as an assistant nurse at Bowen Hospital. “I worked as an AIN (Assistant in Nursing) at Bowen Hospital practically every weekend from before I got into medical school and then for the first five years I was at medical school,” Prof Mallett says.
Read MoreThe NQRTH medical training network:
NQRTH is an initiative of the Australian Government's Integrated Rural Training Pipeline (IRTP) and is facilitated by James Cook University in partnership with public and private hospitals, Queensland Aboriginal and Islander Health Council (QAIHC), health services, Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations (ACCHOs) and GP clinics.
Cairns region
(07) 4226 8187
Central West region
(07) 4764 1547
Mackay region
(07) 4885 7122
North West region
(07) 4764 1547
Torres and Cape region
(07) 4095 6103
Townsville region
(07) 4781 3424