BOP Clinical School a Hit with Medical Students

20 July 2012

Student doctor Mike Ngawati feels very lucky and valued to be spending his intern year working in the wards at Tauranga Hospital.

“The student life here is really good,” he says. “The lifestyle is so different from Auckland. It’s friendly, the attitudes towards students are really good and it’s easy to integrate into the hospital teams and contribute more.”

This year the Bay of Plenty District Health Board has its first group of 10 full year trainee interns who work apprenticeship-style carrying out clinical care whilst under supervision. Clinical School Manager Sarah Strong says trainees at Tauranga Hospital get involved in a much broader range of clinical experiences and responsibilities than in other larger hospitals.

“The BOP Clinical School is increasingly becoming the hospital of choice for University of Auckland medical students,” she says. “We put a lot of energy into managing their orientation and time here in the Bay of Plenty. As a smaller DHB we can offer rural placements in Whakatane, which adds even more depth to the student experience.”

Sarah says trainee interns at other hospitals in the country usually only get to work in certain clinical units, due to the high competition for spots and the sheer size of the hospitals.

“This is the first year Tauranga Hospital has had the capacity to host trainee interns for a whole year and word is getting out that it’s a fabulous place to undertake the internship.”

Student doctor Kelsi Nichols, who plans to become a Rural GP, loves the laid-back lifestyle of living in the Bay

“You can live anywhere in Tauranga and still get to work within 10 to 20 minutes,” she says. “We have built up really good networks with everyone. We know who everyone is from nurses through to radiologists, which makes our training much easier and our contribution so much greater.”
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