New interns welcomed to Coffs Harbour Health Campus Coffs Coast Coffs Coast News by News Of The Area - Modern Media - January 27, 2021 Mid North Coast Local Health District Chief Executive Stewart Dowrick (front centre) is pictured with new Coffs Harbour-based interns (back L-R) Thomas York, Trefyn Francis, Bridie Peters, Ursula Cooper, Nicholas Hui, (middle) Mark Roberts, Jayden Conaghan, Callista Raharjo, (front) Emily Chen and Bingzhi He. COFFS Harbour Health Campus has welcomed 10 new doctors who are among a record 1,041 interns starting work in NSW public hospitals this year. Advertise with News of The Area today. It’s worth it for your business. Message us. Phone us – (02) 4981 8882. Email us – media@newsofthearea.com.au Member for Coffs Harbour Gurmesh Singh said the junior medical officers had joined NSW Health at a remarkable time. “Starting your career as a doctor amid a global health pandemic provides a unique opportunity to play a vital role in our extraordinary health system,” Mr Singh said. “These new interns will be a fantastic asset to our local frontline health staff. “Due to COVID restrictions, we were unable to hold our usual hospital meet and greet, but it’s wonderful to see them working in our region.” This year, NSW has a record number of 1,041 intern positions, an increase of 35 per cent since 2011. Of these positions, 150 belong to the Rural Preferential Recruitment scheme, in which interns undertake the majority of their training in rural hospitals. This has doubled in number since 2012. This innovative scheme was designed to encourage interns to work in rural hospitals once they finished their medical school training. The new doctors started their internships this week and will be based in Coffs Harbour for formal and on-the-job training over the next two years. Interns are medical graduates who have completed their medical degree and are required to complete a supervised year of practice in order to become independent practitioners. For more information about the recruitment of Junior Medical Officers, visit the dedicated page on the NSW Health website: https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/jmo/Pages/default.aspx.
