Two medical students and two first-year doctors have been recognised for their hard work winning awards at Ballarat Base Hospital.
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Matthew Nigro from Deakin University and Maggie Forbes from the University of Melbourne were the student award winners, while Wei Lun (Alvin) Kong and Damian Johnson won awards as interns.
Ballarat Health Services deputy director of medical services Linda Danvers said the intern awards were based on feedback from supervising senior doctors, along with the interns’ input into the hospital and ability to go above and beyond.
“For our interns, it’s something we’ve only recently introduced, just because we want them to know how much we value their efforts and commitment to the hospital,” she said.
“And for the students, it’s a significant achievement for them to be top of their clinical schools.”
Dr Kong has spent his first year out of university doing rotations in general medicine, surgery, emergency, cardiology and a short stay unit.
“Everyone (at the hospital) has been very supportive,” he said. “As a junior doctor you’re just learning how to do the job and I’ve had a really good experience this year.”
Dr Kong said he was “honoured” and “humbled” to win the award.
“I always say that it’s a team effort... all that we do is all from guidance and learning from different people.”
For Dr Johnson the internship presented an opportunity to return home to Ballarat after studying in Melbourne.
“It was a pretty easy decision for me to want to work here and I’ve loved every minute of it,” he said.
“At the moment I would like to pursue emergency medicine as a career pathway but I’m keeping an open mind as I gain experience.”
Dr Johnson has plans to stay on in Ballarat next year as a surgical resident.
Mr Nigro said winning the student award was “icing on the cake” after a “tough” eight years of study.
He started with an undergraduate degree in civil engineering before undertaking a bachelor of medicine and surgery.
“It’s nice to have some recognition for really hard work,” he said. “I’m very honoured to have won it, especially having come from Ballarat and used this facility as a patient.”
