Rotations

Sydney West Area Health offers rotations at various metropolitan and regional hospitals.

Rotations are allocated at the end of each year for the coming twelve months and are then communicated to trainess as soon as rosters are confirmed. You will be given an oppurtunity to rank your preferences however you must understand that not everyone can be given their first preferences.

Below you will find details of each hospital affiliated with advanced training at St Vincent's and information related to each rotation offered. Links to the hospitals internet homepage are provided.

Hospitals

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Nepean Hospital

St Vincent's Hospital is a 400 bed tertiary referral hospital directly servicing the inner east and north of Melbourne. A significant volume of the surgical workload is derived from referrals from metroplitan Melbourne and regional Victoria. St Vincent's is actively affiliated with and supports many regional and rural hospitals.

Supervisor of advanced training: Mr Jamie Keck

General Surgery 1 (GS1)

GS1 is the specialist colorectal unit at St Vincent's. It manages the entire spectrum of colorectal disease with strong emphasis on difficult and re-operative pelvic surgery for malignancy, surgical management of inflammatory bowel disease, laparoscopic colorectal surgery, and disorders of function of the pelvic floor and anorectum.
There is one dedicated surgical colonoscopy list per week and the unit also runs an anorectal ultrasound and physiology lab.

Head of unit: Mr Rod Woods

Consultants: Mr Jamie Keck, Mr Michael Johnston and Mr Alexander Heriot

Junior staff: Fellow, registrar, 2 interns

Department of Surgery (DOS)

The DOS unit provides the specialist breast and endocrine surgery service. The department of surgery also manages the full range of general surgical conditions with close liason with the subspecialty units as appropriate. Registrars will be exposed to the range of surgical options for breast cancer with sentinel node biopsy and subcutaneous mastectomy with immediate reconstruction well established techniques at St Vincent's. A surgical oncology clinic also manages soft tissue sarcomas and melanomas on the DOS unit.
On the endocrine side thyroid surgery provides the bulk of the workload but the unit also manages parathyroid, adrenal and pancreatic neuroendocrine tumours.

Head of unit: Mr Michael Henderson

Consultants: Mr Paul Kitchen, Mr Patrick Hayes, Miss Sue Moore, Mr Stephen Farrell and Miss Jane Harding

Junior staff: Fellow or registrar, 2 interns

General Surgery 3 (GS3)

GS3 is the specialist hepatopancreaticobiliary and upper gastrointestinal unit at St Vincent's. It manages the spectrum of malignancies involving the oesophagus, stomach, pancreas, liver and biliary tree. There is also an emphasis on advanced laparoscopic techniques to manage benign disorders particularly of the stomach and oesophagus such as hiatus hernia, reflux and achalasia.

Head of unit: Associate Professor Dominic Vellar

Consultants: Mr Richard Cade, Mr Simon Banting and Mr Sean Mackay

Junior staff: Fellow, registrar, 2 interns

Cardiothoracic Surgery (CTS)

This unit provides both specialist cardiac and specialist thoracic surgical services. The general surgical trainee will be predominantly involved in thoracic surgery.

Head of unit: Mr Michael Yii

Consultants: Mr Ian Nixon, Mr Alex Rosalion, Mr James Kenny, Mr Gavin Wright and Mr Naveed Allem

Junior staff: 3 registrars (2 cardiothoracic trainees, 1 general trainee), 1 resident, 1 intern


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Westmead Hospital

The Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre is a dedicated cancer treatment centre. The surgical oncology services provided within Peter Mac are continually increasing in breadth and complexity. This hospital is able to manage the full spectrum of cancer related illness within a multidisciplinary setting. One registrar is on rotation from St Vincent's and a second registrar is on rotation from the Royal Melbourne Hospital at Peter Mac.

Supervisor of advanced training: Associate Professor Michael Henderson

Breast and Melanoma

This unit provides specialist surgical care for breast and skin and soft tissue cancers.

Head of unit: Associate Professor Henderson

Consultants:

Junior staff: Registrar, 1 resident

Breast and Melanoma

This unit provides specialist surgical care for breast and skin and soft tissue cancers.

Head of unit: A Prof Henderson

Consultants:

Junior staff: Registrar, 1 resident


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Eastern Health

Eastern Health now has it's own independent accredited training scheme. As such St Vincent's trainees rotated to Box Hill enter that training scheme for 6 months and may therefor may be rotated to other Eastern Health sites.

Supervisor of training: Mr Sayed Hassen

For details on rotations available through Eastern Health refer to the Eastern Health section of this site.


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The Northern Hospital

A major metropolitan hospitalinitially established on the outskirts of suburban Melbourne has now been surrounded by rapid urban development. The emergency department is the busiest in Victoria. On-call here exposes the trainee to a wide range of general and paediatric surgery. Importantly in such a busy hospital, there is an overnight surgical registrar. This job is manned by a Basic Sugical trainee. This allows the unit registrars to be rested in order to gain more from the next days training.
Five registrars are rotated to the Northern Hospital with one of these being a St Vincent's trainee, two from the Austin and two from Eastern Health.

Supervisor of advanced training: Mr David Butterfield

General Surgery 1 / Paediatric Surgery

The Surgery 1 Unit also encompasses paediatric surgery. The majority of the workload is a range of general surgery. Mr Tom Sweeney is an upper gastro-intestinal surgeon so ther is a wide exposure to the full range of upper GI surgery. Whipples and oesophageal resections are all performed on site. Liver resctions are probably the only upper GI / HPB operation referred to the Austin Hospital.
The paediatric surgery commitment involves a whole day list with Ms Wheatley every second week. During working hours the Surg 1 registrar is also on-call for acute paediatric surgical emergencies.

Head of unit: Mr Boon Hong

Consultants: (General) Mr Tom Sweeney, Mr Erik Koppert, (Paediatric) Ms Jeniffer Wheatley, Mr Alex Auldist, Mr Joe Cremeri, Ms Gwen Wilson

Junior staff: Registrar, 2 residents

General Surgery 2

The Professorial / Colorectal Unit

Head of unit: Professor Hamish Ewing

Consultants: Mr Andrew Bui, Ms Wanda Stelmach, Mr Devan Gya

Junior staff: Registrar, 2 residents

General Surgery 3

Endocrine / General

Head of unit: Mr Steve Manolas

Consultants: Mr Patrick Moore, Mr Ernest Lim

Junior staff: Registrar, 2 residents

General Surgery 4

Head of unit: Mr

Consultants: Mr Trevor McQuillan, Mr Strugnell

Junior staff: Registrar, 2 residents

Surgery 5 (Vascular/Thoracic)

The vascular unit shares a registrar and intern with the thoracic unit.

Head of unit: Mr

Consultants: (Vascular) Mr Tony Chan, Mr Neill Roberts, (Thoracic) Mr Seven Seevanayagam

Junior staff: Registrar, 1 intern


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Geelong Hospital

The Geelong Hospital is the largest outside of metropolitan Melbourne. Five registrars rotate from St Vincent's to Geelong.

Supervisor of advanced training: Professor David Watters

Surgery 1

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Head of unit: Mr

Consultants:

Junior staff: Registrar, 1 intern

Surgery 2

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Head of unit: Mr

Consultants:

Junior staff: Registrar, 1 intern

Surgery 3

.

Head of unit: Mr

Consultants:

Junior staff: Registrar, 1 intern

Surgery 4

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Head of unit: Mr

Consultants:

Junior staff: Registrar, 1 intern

Vascular

This unit provides specialist vascular surgical services.

Head of unit: Mr David North

Consultants: Mr David McClure, Mr Damien Holdaway

Junior staff: Registrar, 1 intern


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Ballarat Base Hospital

The Ballarat Base Hospital. Two registrars rotate to Ballarat from St Vincent's whilst a third rotates from the Royal Melbourne Hospital

Supervisor of advanced training: Mr Stephen Tobin

Colorectal

This unit provides specialist surgical care for breast and skin and soft tissue cancers.

Head of unit: Mr Stephen Tobin

Consultants: Mr Bruce Stewart

Junior staff: Registrar, 1 intern

Upper GastroIntestinal

This unit provides specialist surgical care for breast and skin and soft tissue cancers.

Head of unit: Mr David Deutscher

Consultants: Mr Andrew Lowe, Mr Stuart Eaton

Junior staff: Registrar, 1 intern

Vascular/Plastics

This unit provides specialist vascular surgical services. Open and edovascular surgery is performed as well as renal access surgery. The registrar is also involved with plastic surgery at Ballarat and will be exposed to a wide range of reconstructive surgery.

Head of unit: Mr Rob Ventura

Consultants: Mr Michael Condous, Mr Rob Sheen (plastics)

Junior staff: Registrar, 1 intern


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Goulburn Valley Health

The Goulburn Valley Base Hospital in Shepparton is a busy general hospital

Supervisor of advanced training: Mr Tony Heinz

General Surgery

Three registrars share the workload of all general surgical patients in the hospital. They will also rotate through working with each of the consultants on a three week roster.

Head of unit: Mr Tony Heinz

Consultants: Mr Mark Eastman, Mr Roly Hunt, Mr David Dalton, Mr Vivek Singh

Junior staff: 3 registrars, 3 interns


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Warrnambool Base Hospital

Warrnambool Hospital is

Supervisor of advanced training: Mr Stephen Fisher

Surgery 1

.

Head of unit: Mr Stephen Fisher

Consultants: Mr Philip Gan

Junior staff: Registrar, 1 resident

Surgery 2

.

Head of unit: Mr

Consultants: Mr Brendan Mooney

Junior staff: Registrar, 1 resident


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