WSU GP Alumni Network
Our first graduates have now been in the workforce for 7 years and we are hearing about and meeting up with many who have chosen GP as their career. At the end of 2017 we circulated a link to a survey to find out about the career pathways of our GP Alumni. Currently we have responses from 28 WSU GPs and GP registrars who graduated between 2011 and 2015. We continue to recruit respondents to our survey but thought you may be interested in our findings so far – with thanks to Emma for collating this information:
- 61% of the 28 respondents have gained their Fellowship of the RACGP, none with ACRRM at this stage.
- 71% of graduates have completed or are undertaking their GP training in Sydney and 21% in rural locations with 7% in other locations.
- 29% of respondents are currently working in Greater Western Sydney, 39% in other parts of Sydney with 21 % currently working in a rural location and 11% elsewhere.
- 14% of the respondents had undertaken a year of study at Lismore and 7% at Bathurst – this correlates well with the 25% of our students who undertake this training.
The data collected from this survey will enable us to build an understanding of WSU graduate interest in general practice and seek their feedback on our GP teaching. It will also enable us to communicate with our GP alumni and support them through their career path – particularly encouraging them to undertake academic registrar posts with us!
Most importantly we hope to celebrate their successes as WSU colleagues!
If you are a WSU alumnus or know anyone who may not have heard about our survey, please consider completing /forwarding this 5 minute survey at the GP Alumni Survey.
Recent RACGP Fellows
Congratulations to Drs Ayesha Siriwardena and Allison Thorn who were recently awarded their FRACGP. Allison and Ayesha are working at Tharawal Aboriginal Corporation where their patients and colleagues greatly value their clinical skills.
A WSU Alumni story
Dr Christine Byrnes is taking an interesting approach to GP training and describes her plan below.
My name is Christine Byrnes and I was a graduate of the 2017 cohort. I am currently completing my internship year at Westmead Hospital, and in 2019 will be starting my hospital year under the RACGP training program as an Australian Defence Force Registrar.
My goals whilst training as an Air Force GP are to develop a particularly good grasp on mental health and women’s health, as having access to an on-base doctor with skills in these areas can make a significant difference to the health of serving members of the military. I also intend to undertake retrieval operations and deployments overseas in the future, to further broaden my scope of practice to include some elements of trauma and emergency medicine where possible. I'm looking forward to seeing where this career takes me!
Stop Press Announcement
Dr Lana Nguyen (2016 class) now an RMO at Liverpool Hospital, was recently awarded the HETI NSW JMO of year. Dr Kenneth Cho, also a graduate from 2016, currently working at Nepean Hospital has won the Australian Medical Students’ Association (AMSA) ‘Excellence in teaching by a junior doctor’ award as part of AMSA’s #GoodDoctorsTeach campaign. It is great to see our alumni acknowledged in these ways! Congratulations to Lana and Ken - we are proud of you both as we are of all our alumni!