ISLAND LIFE

Doctor Kaylee Jordan says anaesthesia trainees are expected to do “almost nothing but study” in the year leading up to their final exam – which partly explains the broad smile and twinkle in her eye when this photograph was taken at the Royal Hobart Hospital in June.

“I was happy to have finished the exam,” says Jordan, who achieved first place in the nation for her primary exam and received a merit prize more recently for her final exam.

“They say you need to do 1000 hours of study for it and that there’s no point in sitting for the exam if you haven’t.

“I felt relief and also a sense of freedom after completing it. It’s great to study something you have a passion for, but it’s nice to have time to do things outside of work.”

For Jordan, that means more time to train for half-marathons, such as the one in which she competed last weekend in Sydney, and to spend time with her abalone-diving husband on their motor-cruiser home moored at Hobart.

Jordan will complete her training as an anaesthetist next year after spending six months at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and six months at Geelong Hospital as part of her Provisional Fellowship year. It takes a minimum of 13 years of training to become an anaesthetist.

“There’s a lot I love about anaesthetic medicine,” she says.

“There’s a good mix of medical and procedural work and there’s quite a big community of anaesthetists in Tasmania.

“They put a lot of their own time into preparing the trainees for the exams and that’s reflected in the high exam success rate we have in Tasmania.”