Rotations
Western 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
The Western Hospital
Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre
Eastern Health
The Northern Hospital
Geelong Hospital
Ballarat Base Hospital
Goulburn Valley Health
Warrnambool Base Hospital
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The Western Hospital
As a 323 bed adult acute teaching hospital, Western Hospital provides a comprehensive range of inpatient and outpatient services including general and specialist surgery, medical services, intensive and coronary care, renal services, emergency services, palliative care and drug and alcohol services.
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
Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre
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
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.
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
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
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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
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
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
Warrnambool Base Hospital
Warrnambool Hospital is
Supervisor of advanced training: Mr Stephen Fisher
Surgery 1
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Head of unit: Mr Stephen Fisher
Consultants: Mr Philip Gan
Junior staff: Registrar, 1 resident
Surgery 2
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Head of unit: Mr
Consultants: Mr Brendan Mooney
Junior staff: Registrar, 1 resident