Transcript for Intensive Care Medicine Training in Northern Queensland
[Soft music plays in the background]
[Text on screen] Specialty Training in Northern Queensland, Anaesthetics.
>> Dr Andrea Odelli:
[Text on screen] Dr Andrea Odelli, Intensive Care Advanced Trainee
Yeah, when I finished med school, I had a pretty good idea that I liked areas such as Emergency and Intensive Care. I did a 3-month ICU rotation and I just fell in love; my first shift was absolutely chaos and there was some really sick people and it was quite sink or swim and I actually found that I really liked that.
>> Dr Melita Trout:
[Text on screen] Dr Melita Trout, Supervisor of Training, Intensive Care
To pursue a career in Intensive Care, one of the first steps is to get broad experience then secure 6 months in Intensive Care. The program itself consists then of completing 12 months of medicine, 12 months of anaesthetics, 24 months of Advanced Training in Intensive Care.
>> Dr Andrea Odelli:
The Queensland ICU pathway is quite unique, so they’ve got an organised system to actually look after trainees and kind of support them through their training. There’s multiple requirements you need to tick off along the way when you’re doing intensive care training. For example, you need to get experience in other specialties. So, the benefit of being up here is how supportive they are and they have arranged those requirements for me.
>> Dr Melita Trout:
There’s not many places where you get the combination of Cardiac Surgery, Neurosurgery, Obstetric patients, such a high proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander patients.
>> Dr Andrea Odelli:
Where we are, in North Queensland, lends itself to quite an interesting case mix. So, we get tropical diseases, all things weird and wonderful.
>> Dr Melita Trout:
Trainees can complete all of their components of training in the north, so the anaesthetics medicine component, emergency medicine component including retrievals.
>> Dr Andrea Odelli:
I will be on-call for admitting patients to the ICU. And so that will involve receiving phone calls from doctors anywhere, all over the region and that will be sometimes just for phone advice or sometimes it’s for a bit more than that and they might need to transfer the patient to us. So, if I was at a bigger hospital, I wouldn’t be getting the opportunity for the independence that I’ve had for the opportunity to kind of step up and do those on-call shifts. So, I definitely think it’s helped me grow a lot quicker.
>> Dr Melita Trout:
One of the benefits lifestyle-wise of living in North Queensland is I drive 10 minutes from home to work every day or it’s an easy cycle along the river.
>> Dr Andrea Odelli:
My initial intention was actually to move to the North Queensland region for one year and then I thought I’d move on and it’s 3 years later and I’m still here. So clearly enjoying myself. I’ve got a 6-month-old puppy who has a lot of energy, so we go for runs, walks most days. We’ve just bought a small sailing catamaran, my partner and I. We’re teaching ourselves how to sail out on the waters off the coast.
>> Dr Melita Trout:
Climbing up Castle Hill, that view over Magnetic Island and Cape Cleveland and the bay just really brings calm, I think, to the soul.
>> Dr Andrea Odelli:
About 6 months into my time here, when I was still quite a junior registrar, I was on night shift and in the middle of the night, we had quite a young woman who had a cardiac arrest on the ward. In the middle of the night, you don’t have consultants around, so it is just you and the other registrar you’re on with and so we were kind of working on our own basically. We managed to successfully resuscitate her, got her back alive essentially and then over a period of a few days, she completely woke up and had absolutely no deficits as a result of that happening. Which I think is a pretty amazing part of what I do. We get to have people at the sickest they ever are and that we can bring them back to normal.
[Text on screen] Explore specialty training opportunities in northern Queensland. nqrth.edu.au
All Intensive Care Medicine specialty training can be completed in northern Queensland, including the critical components of medicine, anaesthetics and advanced training intensive care medicine.
Registrars can complete placements in Cairns, Mackay, Mount Isa and Townsville.
This video was funded by the Australian Government Department of Health as part of the Regional Training Hubs initiative. Produced in partnership with northern Queensland health care providers and James Cook University.
[James Cook University crest appears on screen] Northern Queensland Regional Training Hubs. A network of medical training opportunities. nqrth.edu.au
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