Just what the doctor ordered
DR NICKI MURDOCK’S BOUNDLESS LOVE OF LEARNING COMBINED WITH HER ETHOS OF SERVICE ARE BEING PUT TO GREAT USE IN HER ROLE AS MEDICAL SERVICES EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AT CHHHS, WRITES ALICIA NALLY
As the 2017 Telstra Queensland Business Women’s Award winner in the public sector and academia category, Dr Nicki Murdock career trajectory has been built on an ethos of service. As executive director medical services of the Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Services she is beginning discussions about how to best help young women get back on track with careers as well as find ways to reign in CHHHS’ incredible level of debt. “I think we need to look at how we improve health care so it prolongs people’s lives but we can afford it within the resources we have and the people we have,” she said.
FIGURINES of Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Barack Obama stand out on the shelves of Dr Nicki Murdock’s office, high above boxes of medical journals, financial statements and academic papers.
The Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Services medical services executive director has only recently developed an interest in US politics, as well as innovation incubators like Kickstarter, the website she bought the likelife figurines from.
An interest in everything and a love of learning has marked the pediatrician’s almost four-decade long career.
“I wanted to be a paediatrician because it seemed really efficient to sort something out at the beginning,” said the 60year-old mother of two.
“If you can do the right thing when you have a baby or a child in front of you, you can potentially set their life on the right course.
“People say, ‘why has this gone wrong, doctor?’ and I say the question is, ‘why doesn’t it go wrong all the time?’. We’re such complicated creatures, all the hormones and chemicals inside us, why aren’t they going wrong all the time? It’s just really interesting.”
From Acton in West London, Dr Murdock spent a year training in the neonatal intensive care unit at Melbourne’s Monash medical centre in the late 1990s.
She said the most incredible medical breakthrough in her career has been the surfactant squirted into premature babies’ lungs to help them survive until the organ fully develops.
By 2001, Dr Murdock had bought a medical practice in Rockhampton.
Experience managing a business, gained the hard way, eventually propelled Dr Murdock into positions of senior management across Queensland Health.
She is credited with turning around Gladstone Hospital, finding the money to employ full-time specialist staff, instead of relying on locums.
A six-month contract in Cairns after leaving the Central Hospital and Health services position gave Dr Murdock a taste of the tropical lifestyle and she returned to the Far North at the beginning of last year in her current role.
The 2017 Telstra Queensland Business Women’s Award winner in the public sector and academia category, Dr Murdock’s career trajectory has been built on an ethos of service.
Since the win, a group of
IF YOU CAN DO THE RIGHT THING WHEN YOU HAVE A BABY OR A CHILD IN FRONT OF YOU, YOU CAN POTENTIALLY SET THEIR LIFE ON THE RIGHT COURSE DR NICKI MURDOCK
like-minded executives have started discussions around how to best help young women get on track with their careers.
“I think it’s really important you have a mixture of people running hospitals,” she said.
“If you find you’re good at something like that you have a responsibility to do it because there are lots of doctors who are hopeless at it.
“I see myself as a sort of translator between corporate speak and doctors.”
With pressure on the executive to reign in CHHHS’ incredible level of debt, Dr Murdock said the challenge for many health services into the future would be how to treat patients outside of hospitals.
“As we get better at doing things and we invent new treatments, it means we keep people alive for longer and that means it costs more,” she said.
“I think we need to look at how we improve health care so it prolongs people’s lives but we can afford it within the resources we have and the people we have.
“We need to look at things and do them differently and that means things like telehealth, and we’re trying to improve that as much as we can. And also using the internet to monitor people at home so they don’t need to come to hospital and we can work out when they’re getting sick before they realise it.
“I think we need to be better at doing things closer to home and pushing out to do more surgery in rural hospitals.
“I think there are exciting things happening in health independent of us, things like communities of people getting together and crowd-funding new technology.
“Over the last 18 months we have been embedding the digital hospital.
“It’s still in its infancy. Everyone talks about digital hospitals but it’s like computers 20 years ago. In years to come we’ll be better at using it but we’re still working through how we can do that better.”
I THINK WE NEED TO BE BETTER AT DOING THINGS CLOSER TO HOME AND PUSHING OUT TO DO MORE SURGERY IN RURAL HOSPITALS DR NICKI MURDOCK