BENDIGO Health has welcomed its newest doctors, with 39 interns ready and raring to embark on the next stage of their careers.
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It comes after two-thirds of last year's interns chose to stay on with the health service.
Bendigo Health's intern training supervisor, Dr Sanneil Mathias, said the organisation was excited to welcome the new interns.
Their 12-month internships will consist of five rotations, including experience in emergency medicine, general medicine and general surgery.
Interns will also gain experience in two specialist areas of their choosing.
This week is their orientation week.
"It's a really lovely place to do your internship," Dr Mathias said.
He could speak from personal experience, having done his internship at Bendigo Health.
"It's a big hospital but it's small enough that there's a sense of community as well," Dr Mathias said.
Intern Dr Maeve Delahunty already knew what Bendigo had to offer, having grown up and been a medical student in the community.
She believed regional medicine was the perfect start for a junior doctor.
"I'm excited and I'm nervous," Dr Delahunty said.
"Mainly this year I'm just excited to find my feet as a doctor and try a few specialties I'm interested in and see how I go."
Fellow intern Dr Harshil Singh was looking forward to getting into the workforce after eight years of study.
Originally from Tasmania, Dr Singh made the decision to train in regional Victoria.
"When I preferenced where I wanted to go for training I chose the rural pathway," he said.
He was keen to experience what training was like regionally, believing regional environments provided a greater diversity of patients than a lot of city hospitals.
Dr Singh's first rotation would be in emergency medicine.
"I'm really looking forward to starting in ED and finding out what else I want to pursue in the future," he said.
Dr Mathias said the number of interns who last year chose to stay on with Bendigo Health was very high, not just for the health service, but statewide.
Whether this year's interns followed suit would depend on their chosen career paths.
"We have a lot of ability for them to stay on and pursue various specialty career paths," Dr Mathias said.
Bendigo Health has had 39 interns for the past couple of years.
Most of this year's cohort graduated from Monash University.
Many of the new interns did clinical rotations in Bendigo as part of their training.
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