School visit inspires hyperbaric career moves

More than 10 years after a school excursion to Townsville University Hospital’s (TUH) hyperbaric medicine unit, two staff members have serendipitously ended up becoming trainees in hyperbaric medicine.

In 2015, hyperbaric registrar Dr Hailey Smith and intensive care registered nurse Erica Nielsen were grade 11 students at Ryan Catholic College and visited TUH’s hyperbaric chamber as part of their studies in chemistry.

“We were learning about all the gas and pressure laws and came here for a practical demonstration of them,” Dr Smith said.

“The hyperbaric team used balloons to demonstrate pressure volume changes, which gave us a visual representation of the concepts we were learning about.”

Dr Smith admitted that while she had an interest in studying medicine at the time, she didn’t know then she would end up working back in the hyperbaric unit.

“It’s nice to look back at that time and appreciate how it’s come full circle,” she said.

“I want to do anaesthetics, and hyperbaric medicine is a branch of that; the fellowship for hyperbarics comes under ANZCA (Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists).

“There’s some crossover with the physiology between hyperbarics and anaesthetics and continuing that relationship between theatre and here has been nice.”

For Ms Nielsen, hyperbaric training has been an extension of her practice in the intensive care unit (ICU) and has enabled her to provide continuity of care for her ICU patients.

“There’s a handful of ICU nurses who are trained to come down here with some of our critically unwell patients for conditions such as necrotising fasciitis wounds,” Ms Nielsen said.

“It’s nice to bring them down here without having to hand off to another nurse.

“On a personal level, it’s another skill to learn and a further step in my nursing career.”

Both Dr Smith and Ms Nielsen agreed on how valuable that school visit was, even if they didn’t realise it at the time.

“Having that practical and visual application of what we were learning was quite useful,” Dr Smith said.

“Even now when fourth-year medical students come through, they say, ‘Oh, those gas laws we learned about in early med school now make sense.’"

“It’s funny because I did not love chemistry very much at the time,” Ms Nielsen said.

“After that excursion, I didn’t see this in my future and now to also be working alongside Hailey, it was a nice surprise.”

As for their grade 11 chemistry tests…

“Hailey probably aced hers, I probably did not and that’s why she’s the doctor,” Ms Nielsen