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Eve Malsem is our current fifth year medical student with Monash School of Rural Health.

She is working with us for six weeks undertaking a Cardiology elective. Eve was previously in Mildura for 12 months when she was a third year student.

Eve was born in Wangaratta. Her interests include running, travelling, singing and reading fantasy novels. She lived in Germany for six months as an exchange student whilst completing year 10 and speaks fluent German.

Eve is enjoying her rotation at Mildura Cardiology and her long term goal is to work in a rural area, possibly in north-eastern Victoria, but we would be delighted if she was to come back to Mildura!

Our new Cardiology Registrar for the next 6 months is Dr. Chandran Gunasekaran. Chandran is a 2^nd year Advanced Trainee in Acute and General Medicine. He is also undertaking dual training with the College of Intensive Care Medicine. Having first discovered his interest in acute medicine as a Medical Registrar in another country hospital, he enjoys the challenges of managing acute and chronic medical issues in the rural setting.

He believes the knowledge and skills acquired during his Mildura Cardiology rotation will be useful in his future career as a General Physician and Intensivist.

Chandran has a keen interest in Cosmology and Astronomy. He enjoys walking, cycling, eating, reading and movies.

My name is Goai Wen Huey, I am a final year (5^th year) medical student from Monash University, Malaysian campus. I am originally from Penang, Malaysia, and I am here in Mildura for an elective.

I chose Mildura Cardiology to do my elective because cardiology is one of my options in the future to specialize in.

I was recommended to come here by my senior, Kai Yang, who also did an elective in Mildura Cardiology, and gave remarkable reviews about the clinic.

My hobbies include weight lifting, playing basketball as well as playing music. I play the piano, guitar, and am an amateur drummer.

Mildura Cardiology is definitely a place for you if you have an interest in Cardiology, as all the staff here are extremely friendly and welcoming. They are patient teachers, definitely not shy of sharing their knowledge, and I assure that my 6 weeks here are going to be very enjoyable and beneficial.

Mildura Cardiology is leasing a room in Mildura Base Hospital, to improve the ease of performing echocardiograms on inpatients.  The room is spacious and comfortable, and also allows us to perform other outpatient echocardiogram tests which would be more difficult to do in our Thirteenth Street premises.

One of these tests is a dobutamine stress echo.  This test is used to investigate for coronary artery disease in patients who are unable to use a treadmill. Dobutamine is a medication which is given intravenously, and causes the heart to pump quicker and use more oxygen, much like exercise does, but with the patient resting. An echocardiogram is done at the same time to see if any part of the heart does not pump as strongly as it should, suggesting this part of the heart is not receiving it’s full blood supply, as can be caused by a coronary narrowing.

Several of these studies were done on 15th Oct 2015, and this is the happy Mildura Cardiology team – Margot, Lisa, Jo , Jan and Mitra.  Margot and Lisa are Echo technologists, Jo is our Cardiology Registrar, Jan is one of our Nurses, and Dr Mitra Shirazi is one of our visiting Cardiologists from Adelaide.

Our previous registrar Dr Jun Hua Chong, and our current registrar Dr Jyotsna (Jo) Janardan, both presented posters at the recent annual scientific meeting of the Cardiac Society of Australasia and New Zealand. The posters were to do with echocardiography and interhospital patient transfers respectively, and based on studies both doctors had  undertaken at Mildura Cardiology. To have their work accepted for presentation was an honour, and we are proud of their achievements. Jun has recently been accepted into the cardiology training program and will be starting this at the Nepean Hospital in NSW in 2016. We congratulate her on the appointment and will follow her career with interest and pride in the years to come.

Our current medical student doing a six week cardiology elective is Hassanain Altamin, originally from Iraq. He is a 5^th year medical student attending Monash University. He has a keen interest in cardiology as a future career, and his hobbies include martial arts, motor sports and sky diving. He reports enjoying his experience at Mildura Cardiology and we have enjoyed his pleasant nature and enthusiasm for his studies.

Our new cardiology registrar for the next six months is Dr Jo Janardan.

Jo is originally from India, and has previously been a General Medical Registrar at the Mildura Base Hospital. Jo was exceptional in this role and we are lucky to have her return to Mildura.

Jo was awarded The Alfred APT research award in 2014 for the research she did during her previous rotation at Mildura Base Hospital. She  recently presented her research poster at CSANZ 2015 in Melbourne and will also present it at the IMSANZ 2015 meeting on the Gold Coast.

Mildura Cardiology is involved in several clinical trials.

This story was taken from the monthly newsletter #8 from a clinical trial called “The Odyssey” trial.  It is a double blind trial run and monitored by ‘Sanofi Aventis’. The purpose of the trial is looking to develop a new form of lipid modifying therapy.

Mildura now has its own transoesophageal echocardiogram, commonly known as a TOE, which provides high quality ultrasound images of the heart.

The equipment, sent down a patient’s oesophagus to scan the heart, may not be large but, with a $75,000 price tag, obtaining one for Mildura’s cardiology department had been a long-term goal.

A substantial donation from the Mallee Health Foundation helped pay for the TOE, which cardiologist Alan Soward said could save as many as 15 patients a year from having to be flown to Melbourne or Adelaide for the scan.

The vast majority of patients who were being transported by air ambulance had significant illnesses, such as stroke or endocarditis, an infection of the heart valve.

Our current cardiology registrar is Dr Jun Hua Chong. Jun is originally from Singapore, and plans a career in cardiology. She will be with us for six months and we are enjoying her enthusiasm, skill and good humour. Later in the year, we will have Dr Jyotsna Janardan (Jo) as our registrar for six months. Jo is originally from India, and has previously been a General Medical Registrar at Mildura Base Hospital. Jo was exceptional in this role and we look forward to her return. These doctors come to Mildura on rotation from The Alfred, in Melbourne.