NINETY-THREE junior doctors are beginning their medical careers with stints as interns at Auburn and Westmead Hospitals.
Among them are 38-year-old Dr Jamie Brown and 25-year-old Dr Taren Bettler, and while neither has walked a direct path into medicine, both are equally passionate about their new roles.
Dr Brown admits making a late career switch from public servant to studying medicine wasn’t easy especially when it came balancing his family life, and says he was lucky to have plenty of support from his wife.
“Having two kids, I’ve had to be a lot more focused on organising my time,” he said.
“I do feel I’m a bit better at communicating with patients because of my life experience.
“It’s a really rewarding job and I enjoy interacting with the patients. It doesn’t ever get boring.”
Hoping to eventually become an Anaesthesiologist, he’s finding his feet at Auburn but says having everything online and streamlined makes the workload much more efficient.
Also learning to navigate the corridors of Auburn Hospital, starting with a rotation in the emergency department, Dr Bettler had two years of an engineering degree already under her belt when an elective in biomedical engineering led her to switch her studies to medicine.
“I’m so lucky, I fell into a career that I absolutely love,” she said.
“I love being able to combine helping people with science, and there are so many ways to go in medicine as well.
“Auburn has been great, it’s a good place to start learning how to do things. The support you get here from the senior staff is just wonderful.”
Passionate about new roles
THE first day at any new job can be a little scary but junior doctors Taren Bettler, George Nohra, Jamie Brown, Anthony Ooi, Alex Sahagian, Maria Chow and Vanessa Khouri had plenty of support from each other as they began their first rotation at Auburn Hospital last week.
