Working at Tully Hospital

Transcript from ‘Hear from our staff about working at Tully Hospital’

[Upbeat background music plays while drone footage of the town of Tully and the hospital is shown]

>> Dr Alfred Song, Director of Medical Services/Senior Medical Officer: Hello, I'm Doctor Alfred Song. I'm the Director of Medical Services and a Senior Medical Officer here at Tully Hospital.

>> Vicki Harragon, Director of Nursing/Facility Manager: Hello, I'm Vicki Harragon, the Director of Nursing and Midwifery and facility manager of Tully hospital.

Tully township is made up predominantly of agriculture, namely bananas, sugarcane, cattle, and tropical fruits, and this is the community that we serve.

>> Dr Alfred Song, Director of Medical Services/Senior Medical Officer: Tully Hospital is a level two hospital, and we provide care through our emergency department, inpatient wards, as well as outpatient GP clinics.

We are also serviced by visiting clinicians and physicians, and if you're training to be a rural generalist, whether you're a doctor, a nurse, or allied health, Tully is a great place to be and let our team tell you more about it.

>> Dr Nameana Marcella Seve, Senior Medical Officer: I came to Tully Hospital in 2020 and I was only meant to come in for three months as a relieving doctor. Three and a half years later, I'm still here.

Tully Hospital has come a long way. It used to be a community of almost up to 5,000, looked after by one doctor and being on call every day. So, from that situation, more than 10 years ago until now, we have up to nine doctors, five seniors and four juniors. We have Director Medical Services, Dr Alfred, who really supports us.

>> Petra Chvatalova, Clinical Nurse: One of the best things in this hospital is that we are such a tight-knit community and we work really well together. The teamwork is exceptional here.

>> Mina Shinwarie (sitting with Karini Srinivasan), JCU MBBS Year 2 Students: As very young medical students who've not had much exposure to the clinical side of medicine, Tully has been a wonderful change to that. The whole team, not just the doctors, the nurses, the allied health have really made it a nurturing environment.

I feel like we both are comfortable enough to speak up and say we don't know something and not be embarrassed or ashamed. They facilitated a very positive and learning environment.

>> Elsy Joseph, Nurse Unit Manager: I moved from the Sunshine Coast three months ago to be the Nurse Unit Manager for Tully Hospital and now I'm thinking why wasn't I here earlier?

We are a small facility yet with a busy emergency department and an acute medical ward. We also provide primary healthcare through GP clinics.

>> Dr Amber Weidman, Resident Medical Officer: My name's Amber, I'm a PGY 2 resident from Cairns Hospital. So I've come here as a resident, in mainly a GP role, so I do a bit of ward and ED, but a lot of the time I'm in the clinic here in the GP practice.

The GP clinic is really a fun place to work because the clinic's actually part of the hospital. So, a lot of the time I'll see a patient on the ward or in ED and I'll actually follow them up in a few days’ time in the clinic so I know their background already and it's good continuity of care.

>> Sophie Popham, Senior Physiotherapist: I'm the only physio here at Tully Hospital together with our allied health staff. We cover the wards, outpatients and emergency department as well. Today my littlest one is a two-month-old baby and the oldest one I'll see is a 91-year-old lady, so we see a bit of everything which is really cool to learn.

>> Dr Michaela Van Raders, Principal House Officer: I've grown as a diagnostician. Working in Tully Hospital I've had to think a lot more than I've had to in the past.

One of the biggest challenges is the logistics of everyone who comes in who needs an investigation that just because they've come to a rural centre that doesn't have that investigation doesn't mean that they shouldn't get it. And the logistics of just even organising a CT abdomen and trying to figure out the either road transfer or air transfer and talking to all the relevant people. Being able to do that is very challenging, but it's also very rewarding and the staff here are incredibly supportive at helping you reach those decisions.

>> Petra Chvatalova, Clinical Nurse: We are such a small facility, so the services are limited. So on top of our duties, some of the nurses also do x-rays, which can be quite challenging at times. But it's something that needs to be done for the community.

>> Dr Gun Hee An, Senior Medical Officer: The biggest thing that I struggle with medicine is creativity, and I think the more rural that you go helps you to be more creative because you haven't got much resources. So you have to always think about what is the safest thing to do for a patient given the resources that you've got. And I think places like Tully is great because you can be a bit more autonomous and a bit more independent with your clinical practice.

>> Petra Chvatalova, Clinical Nurse: You can pretty much experience anything here. It can be anything from GP related presentation to full-blown, big emergencies so there is quite a wide area of knowledge to gain here.

>> Dr Leonie Fromberg, Senior Medical Officer: It's pretty difficult to find another spot in Australia that's as good as the Cassowary Coast and Tully and Mission Beach.

>> Sophie Popham, Senior Physiotherapist: The lifestyle is one of the things that encouraged us to come up here. Our weekends are always normally pretty busy, so you know, we like going out to the reef, going diving, spear fishing, fishing, snorkelling around.

[Vision of the reef, the coastline, and staff fishing]

>> Dr Leonie Fromberg, Senior Medical Officer: We've got so much local produce around that. if you really challenge yourself, you can find just about everything you need in the area. I really love that challenge of being able to forage your own stuff and create some great meals and decrease your carbon footprint and live in a beautiful area.

[Vision of staff eating and holding the seafood they have caught followed by the Mission Beach coastline]

I've moved to Mission Beach. The place is beautiful, and I always had a dream of owning a boat. So, two dreams - one was to become a doctor, the other one was the boat.

>> Raelynn King, Clinical Nurse: There's lots of walks, there's the beach, there's the reef, there's lots of waterfalls and waterholes. Really lovely place to work actually.

>> Petra Chvatalova, Clinical Nurse: Mm-Hmm. Yeah, it is, yeah. Also, some, you know, like a really nice community culture with the coffee shops and community markets and all sorts of things.

>> Elsy Joseph, Nurse Unit Manager: So, for nurses who are looking for a variety of experience, including acute experience, this is the best place to work.

>> Dr Nameana Marcella Seve, Senior Medical Officer: I like being a rural doctor. It's a lot of, you know, satisfaction and I think Tully is a really good place to work.

>> Dr Alfred Song, Director of Medical Services/Senior Medical Officer: Alright, so you've heard from our team, if you have any questions, please feel free to get in touch and we hope to see you at Tully Hospital very soon.

>> Vicki Harragon, Director of Nursing/Facility Manager: You are all very welcome.

[Music ends with vision panning out from Tully Hospital]

[Text on screen] Scan here to view the CHHHS Careers page for further information with QR code and Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Service logo on screen.

End of transcript