Life in Medicine

Paul is a recent registrar that I have had the pleasure of working with over the recent years. Once again, I got to listen to what the next generation of doctors and surgeons think about their work, training dn what life might look like in the future. 

Patrick Elias is a orthopaedic registrar that has recently been accepted onto the training programme for orthopaedics. He discussed the challenges of having a young family and balancing that with a busy medical life. 

Nick Paltoglou has been a trainee registrar at our hospital and this was chance to look back on the good the bad and what could be better. We talked about the challenges that can be seen during training. 

The podcast guests today Ben, Muqi and Nick. These are three people that I've worked with regularly over the last 12 months and beyond. It's very much a light-hearted podcast and I hope you enjoy it.

Ben Lyons is a Orthopaedic nurse at a major Melbourne trauma centre. He has a wealth of of experience and has a great attitude towards his word and life in general.

Jarrad Stevens is an othopaedic surgeon. We talked about medicine, the military and some of the challenges that daily life offers us. 

Luis Prado is the CMO for Epworth healthcare. He has been in the role for some years now. However, as always with these conversations we quickly left medicine and talked about gardening, history and military history. We did touch on COVID but not as much as one would think. 

Alex Meldrum is a Canadian trained fellow who has come to Australia to gain experience in trauma care. He has done so during a difficult time but has still managed to get the most out of the experience and he should be commended on this. We talked about a lot of things but focused on what he likes to do when not working. 

John Daffy is an infectious disease physician.  He has been working in this are for over 2 decades. Being from a rural back ground he has very pragmatic approach to medicine. More interesting is the back story about how he took time off from medical school to focus on running and his interest in horse training. In recent months he has been on other podcasts including "You cannot be serious" . In this podcast he discusses the importance of getting the vaccine to an audience who may be more reluctant to get the vaccine. 

Richard Page is an Orthopaedic surgeon based in Geelong. He has a primary area of interest in upper limb pathology and takes on the challenge of research better than most. 

Ian Harris appears on the podcast for the second time. This time it is discuss the issues that affect medicine and surgery and utility of some interventions. This is in the lead up to a new book that he has coming out called  - Hippocrasy, How doctors are betraying their oath.

Phillip Antippa is a cardiothoracic surgeon at the but has a particular interest in thoracic surgery. He has developed techniques for plating rib fractures and he discusses the learning curve associated with this procedure. Like always it is hard to avoid how COVID affects our life these days. Out of medicine he has a keen interest in music and we talk about how this interest has grown over time. 

David Bainbridge is an orthopaedic surgeon who has been a keen teacher of medical students and junior doctors over several decades. He has always felt that teaching is critical to the ongoing care of the community. Like always this conversation could have gone on further and longer but it is  a balance between content and time . With any luck he will return to the podcast at some point in the future. 

Bill Ribbans is an orthopaedic surgeon, based in the UK. He as recently stopped operating but continues to work clinically with patients and athletes. He as long career of caring for people with sports injuries and comes with a wealth of wisdom. He has recently written a book called "Knife in the fast lane. A Surgeon's Perspective from the Sharp End of Sport" exploring the effects of sports and associated injuries on athletes of all levels.  Some of the proceeds of the book are donated to prostate cancer research in the UK. This comes from a personal point of view which he does cover in the book as well. 

Johnny Rayner is a first year orthopaedic trainee who has appeared on Life in Medicine before. This episode is an effort to follow hip during his training  and hopefully will continue to do so over the coming years. 

Peter Morley is an ICU physician who also has a keen interest in teaching helping educate medical students. He is the director of medical governance  and also the director of medical education at his teaching hospital. 

Xavier Griffin is an Orthopaedic Surgeon who lives in London. He is currently living through a lockdown that has extended for some months. Despite this he has kept up his optimism and making the most of it. He has been a very active contributor to the scientific literature and takes a keen interest in orthopaedic research.  

Martin Richardson is an Orthopaedic Surgeon who has increasingly become interested int eh idea of surgical coaching over recent years. This has developed after he joined the Australian Defence force. He does take this opportunity to offer up a workshop that is coming up for Australian Surgeons who may want to take up the idea of surgical coaching. The link for this course i listed below:https://surgicalcoaching.zohobackstage.com/SurgicalCoachTrainingforAustralianSurgeon.

David Slattery is an Orthopaedic Surgeon who has also embarked on a medicolegal career from a relatively early age and stage in his career. He has done this his practice partner and together they have created something that is hard to do. We talked about legal work and the business side of things.

Professor Wayne Derman is Sports Medicine Doctor from Cape Town, South Africa. He is the Director of the Institute of Sport and Exercise Medicine at Stellenbosch University’s Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences. He has had a career that has seen work with a sports medical programme, national sports teams and also work with the first African who went into space.

Alison Taylor is an Orthopaedic surgeon who dedicated herself to foot and ankle surgery. Over the course of her career she has dedicated herself to her family, teaching and various administrative roles. She continues to do with a good balance between work and personal life.

Chris Morrey is an Orthopaedic Surgeon based in Cairns. He has recently taken on the role of one the AOA vice presidents and will thus be the AOA President in a few years time. He has great enthusiasm for work in regional and rural areas of Australia and this episode follow on with the recent theme of talking to doctors who work in these areas.

Anita Boecksteiner is an Orthopaedic surgeon who has balanced the issues of sub-specialisation and general orthopaedics in a major city. She has taken on the challenges of complex orthopaedic problems in the format of using ilizarov frames and has spent time at the home of the these frames in Russia.

Ruban Ambikaipalan is recently graduated orthopaedic surgeon who is currently undertaking a fellowship in the UK. Unfortunately the timing has meant that his fellowship is during the pandemic in the UK which has altered his the experience he was hoping for. However he is upbeat about it.

Jit Balakumar is a Melbourne based Orthopaedic surgeon who specialises in pelvic work. However we discussed things like the Pandemic and also how diversity of opinion in these times is so important. The pandemic has lead to some good things leading people to take stock of what is good in our lives during these difficult times.

Richard Kjar is a orthopaedic surgeon based in rural Victoria. I have known Richard for nearly 20 years and I am always amazed at how he can balance a healthy outdoor life with a busy orthopaedic practice.

James Churchill is a orthopaedic surgeon who has recently set up a practice in regional Victoria. He discusses some of the challenges associated with that. He also talked about the returning to Australia during a lockdown and having to quarantine for two weeks in a hotel.

Marinis Pipiris is a Orthopaedic surgeon who I have known now, for about 25 years. He has moved from one challenge to another throughout his career. We talk about COVID and its effects on the community and move onto other things like the roles of mentors.

Professor Brett McDermott is an Australian medical graduate who trained in Psychiatry. He has an appointment at the James Cook University but, he holds other academic appointments: By-Fellow at Churchill College, Cambridge University; Adjunct Professor at QUT; Professorial Fellow at Mater Research. From 2006-2016 he was a Board Director of beyondblue: the National Depression Initiative.Research interests include mental health systems of care with a specific focus on individuals presenting with depression, PTSD and eating disorders.

I welcome Assoc Prof Ruth Stewart, currently residing on Thursday Island, and who has recently been appointed National Rural Health Commissioner. She has spent a life working in regional and remote areas of Australia. She now spends time careing for people in these areas and also trying to improve the availability of healthcare.https://www1.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/National-Rural-Health-Commissioner

Annabelle Brayley is nurse by training but in the later part of her career she has become an author. She wrote "Bush Doctors" and has also been the author of other books about a medical life in the outback and rural areas. She has written on previous guests from this podcast including Paul Duff.

James Cattermole is the first guest I have had on the podcast who does not directly work in the healthcare sector. He does have keen interest in exercise and fitness. He also has experience in start up and entrepreneurship. It is interesting to get a different perspective on these things from someone outside of medicine.

Nick Marson has been my registrar over the last 6 months before he moved back to Tassie for ongoing training (including 2 weeks quarantine). Nick has been a enthusiastic, engaged and a generally good person to work with. It is always good when a consultant learns from a registrar as much as they learn from consultant.

Harvinder appears on this podcast for the second time and there is a good discussion about teaching, Robots and other issues.

Gary Fettke is well known Orthopaedic Surgeon from Tasmania who has taken up an interest in how diet can help improve the health of his patients. He talks about how the education of doctors in regard to diet and nutrition can be improved in order to help with preventive medical care.

Paul Duff is a very experienced GP who has set up a practice in Rural Australia and in the snow fields of Australia. He has a keen interest in maintaining his knowledge in order to offer the best care for patients that he treats at the snow.

Liz McCleod is a paediatric surgeon who has managed to find a good balance between work in major hospital and also work in adventurous environments that most other doctors would only dream. It was also interesting to hear her take on what it is like to be a patient.

Greg Keane is an Australian trained Psychiatrist. He now works full time for MSF and is based in Paris. This episode is a little late to publication as I was not sure how to address the internet drop outs that we had. The recordings are not perfect but the stories are certainly interesting.

Axel Sylvan is a entrepreneur who has left clinical medicine in order to pursue the challenge of creating a start up in medicine. He has developed with his business partner an App that patients can use to help guide them though the journey of a surgical procedure.

Liam West is a Sports medical registrar and has managed to find a way use his medical skills to his and societies benefit.

Sue Liew is a spinal surgeon who has has dedicated her work toward both patient care and medical teaching. She is well known for her excellent teaching and also her administrative roles.

Paulo is a orthopaedic surgeon who specialises in treating patients with cerebral palsy. He has very pragmatic way of looking at life. He has now worked in 3 countries and with that he brings his unique way of approaching problems.

Hugh Cattermole is the first guest on the podcast who is an administrator. He works for a company that provides a variety of care needs including aged care. He has had to help co-ordinate the locking down of nursing homes in order to protect the clients in those centres. This has been distressing for family and friends but is being done in order to protect the health of those people.

Leo Donnan is a paediatric orthopaedic surgeon who has specialised in limb deformity corrections. He has also created a well known limb reconstruction fellowship that attracts people from all over the world. He touches on the role of a good mentor and how important they are in difficult times. During the time of the COVID 19 the role of mentors and friends seems even more important.

Rudy Ambikaipalan is a Junior consultant on a busy orthopaedic unit. There is no doubt that he will quickly become a senior consultant. He offers insight to how he approached the training programme and how he would do it differently if he were were to have his time over. I think this episode is of particular interest to junior trainees as given he recent graduation there is some insight that is very helpful.

Tony Dunin is orthopaedic surgeon who has fostered an interest in mindfulness over the last decade or even more. He comes at this from a very personal point of view and now feels that he can help people with what he learned. I agree with him. We talk about some things that people may be able to do during the next few months to help themselves.

Simon has been a good friend of mine ever since we meet when he came to Australia in 2009 to do a fellowship. Since then, he and his family have emigrated to Australia and set up home in Wagga Wagga where is now the head of unit. He has interests in ultra marathons amongst other things and has taken on an rural and Australian way of life with great enthusiasm.

Michael is a current orthopaedic trainee. He works hard and has a family. He has committed to his training and undertaken its challenges. It was great to listen to his description of these challenges and how he approached them. He enjoys time outside medicine too including tinkering in his shed, something he has always done.

Amanda is well known and respected General Surgeon who now likes to concentrate on renal transplants. She is one of 4 surgeons in her unit that now does up to 120 transplants per year. She has also done work in Asia with various foreign aid efforts.

Ilya has been a junior doctor at the hospital that I work at. He has progressed though a unit from medical student level to now being a registrar. It has been interesting to watch a junior doctor develop and grow.

Jason Harvey is a hand surgeon. He has fostered over the course of a decade a practice that is well balanced toward public and private sector work. He has a strong interest in the training of registrars as they will be the next generation. Outside of medicine he enjoys sport of various types and still spends time playing sport with friends and his family.