LIGHTS, CAMERA, EMERGENCY
It was June 2005 and Dr Michelle Thornhill’s first day at her job in a hospital emergency department. She was fresh out of medical school but, as the day went on, she started to relax. Maybe being an emergency doctor wasn’t so stressful after all?
But just as she was about to go for lunch, Michelle’s first day was turned into something straight out of a TV hospital drama.
“An ambulance pulled up with a man who had a severely injured leg. It needed amputation,” Michelle, now 45, recalls to New Idea. “He was followed by heavily armed police and then more ambulances arrived with people who had shrapnel injuries.”
There had been a bomb in one of the cities in Trinidad and Tobago, close to where Michelle was working. What had been a normal day with a trickle of patients had quickly turned into a very demanding and chaotic one.
“I could understand how that might turn some people off, but I was hooked on emergency medicine from that moment,” Michelle says. “I was high on the adrenaline and the sense of being needed to fulfil a role.”
Thankfully, Michelle didn’t have to deal with any fatalities that day. One year later, and still inspired by that experience, she moved to Australia where she trained as specialist emergency physician.
“From the age of 7, I wanted to be a doctor,” says Michelle, who now lives in Seddon, Victoria. “I watched my grandfather fix up my dog after he got into a fight, and I had this feeling I wanted to do the same for people.
“Plus, I made the mistake of telling my dad I wanted to be a doctor and there was no turning back!”
Emergency is where Michelle’s heart lies, though – in part because she says that it’s never boring.
“My patients don’t read the textbook,” she jokes. “They don’t always come in with the typical symptoms for something, so a bit of detective work is often needed.
“I had an elderly lady with seizures recently. It’s something that’s usually caused in the brain, but she was hooked up to a heart monitor and when she unexpectedly seized again, we saw her heart had stopped, causing the seizure.” Michelle’s patient was then taken to cardiology where she got a pacemaker fitted and was sent home cured!
Even as a child, Michelle wasn’t squeamish and it’s a quality that’s served her well in her current job.
“The most shocking thing I’ve seen is a man who lost half of his face after an attack by an animal,” says Michelle, who was nicknamed ‘Doc’ by her grandmother as a child. “My eyes almost popped out of my head when I saw him.
“After I’d put him into an induced coma, he went off for reconstructive surgery and I never saw him again. That’s the downside of the job. We often don’t see the end result.”
The most common thing Michelle deals with is chest pains with injuries from motorbikes, while people over 60 climbing and falling from ladders is also high on the list.
‘AMBULANCES ARRIVED WITH PEOPLE WHO HAD SHRAPNEL INJURIES’
It’s something viewers will see for themselves as Michelle’s work is the subject of the real-life medical TV series, Emergency.
The Channel Nine show follows the emergency team at Royal Melbourne Hospital. Despite never wanting to be in the public eye, Michelle is glad to have been involved.
“After the initial awkwardness of having a camera crew following me, I got used to it and it’s actually really rewarding hearing the feedback,” Michelle tells. “People have said thank you to me for what I do and even say they’ve been inspired to work at a hospital because of it.”
She adds, “Any positive light we can shine can only be a good thing.”
MICHELLE’S FIRST DAY AS A DOCTOR MIRRORED A TV DRAMA!