Wollongong's own Dr Lucinda Beck is about to launch her medical career right in her hometown.
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Dr Beck is one of 69 junior doctors joining the Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District this year.
While starting a career as a doctor during a global pandemic sounds especially daunting, Dr Beck has already had a taste of what working in a hospital during this turbulent time is like.
She has been working at Wollongong Hospital as an assistant in medicine, a new position created for medical students to boost the workforce during the COVID outbreak.
"I guess excited as well as nervous, but I think we've been prepared over the last six months with all the craziness of COVID," Dr Beck said of starting her new job.
She said coming into the profession during a pandemic probably also made her and other young doctors more resilient, because they had already been exposed to tough conditions.
From Monday, Dr Beck will begin her first rotation in oncology at the hospital.
Her time as an intern will take her through five rotations in Wollongong and elsewhere in the district, exposing her to different specialties.
While Dr Beck had not yet set her heart on a particular specialty, if she said she would pick paediatrics or rural general practice if she had to choose.
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She said she really enjoyed the GP setting in a rural town when she did a 12-month term in Milton-Ulladulla, and the challenge of paediatrics - working with young patients who could not always communicate their experiences well - was interesting.
Dr Beck hails from Wollongong and completed both her degrees - a Bachelor of Medical Biotechnology and a Doctor of Medicine - at the University of Wollongong.
She also comes from a medical background: two of her grandparents were doctors (her grandfather, Dr Roger Baxendale, was a GP in Austinmer for most of his working life) and her brother Dr Matthew Beck is a surgeon at Wollongong Hospital.
But Dr Beck said she decided that medicine was the path for her when, during her undergraduate degree, she did a few internships in labs and realised she needed an interpersonal element in her work.
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Natalie Croxon
Reporter at the Illawarra Mercury, mostly covering social affairs. Previously of the Bendigo Advertiser, Northern Daily Leader and Quirindi Advocate. Our Watch award winner.
Reporter at the Illawarra Mercury, mostly covering social affairs. Previously of the Bendigo Advertiser, Northern Daily Leader and Quirindi Advocate. Our Watch award winner.
