Age: 42

Role: Director, Hamilton Medical Center

What is your job?

I am the Director of the Hamilton Medical Centre on Victoria Street behind City Hall car park. We are a full service medical clinic open six days a week including Saturdays. We offer walk-in TCD physicals and same day blood test results to any member of the public (not just my own patients) via our state-of-the-art laboratory. I also am a general practitioner for my patients. I treat my patients for everything from minor injuries and annual physicals to serious conditions that may need immediate admission to hospital.

What is your favourite part of the job? One of the things that is particularly important in this job aside from helping people is the trust and confidence they put in me. This humbles me and I take pride in knowing that people much older than me, or people with powerful positions in society, trust my advice and know that what they say will remain totally confidential. I feel privileged to do what I do for a living.

What is the least favourite part of the job?

Trying to take a holiday is the worst problem with this job. In order to leave the clinic, I have to bring someone in from overseas, and pay his or her airfare (the last locum was from India!), medical insurance, accommodation and salary. I also have to get the visiting doctor through Immigration each time as well. It is very hard to find a locum and one just has to wait until one becomes available and take the holiday at short notice. This is the toughest thing about this job and I average only one holiday every two years.

What is your most interesting experience at work?

As a doctor, you never know what kinds of situations you are going to be confronted with. When I was an intern working long hours at a hospital overseas, I was just nearing the end of an especially long shift when two of my patients went into cardiac arrest at the same time! Now that was a crisis! There I was running up and down the corridor trying to get help from nurses and to stabilise both patients at once - it was truly mad for a while there and I wondered why on earth I had ever decided to be a doctor! But after a couple of hours the crisis was over and both patients came through fine, although my frustration level with the job was at an all time high! It was then that I noticed a little old lady sitting on a bench who I had ignored in all the frenzy. She looked at me and said: “Thank you doctor.” It turned out that one of the heart attack patients I had saved was her husband. In that instant, I was reminded how meaningful my job was, and just how important the work that I was doing was to other people.

What would you be doing otherwise?

I would be doing some sort of job in the marine industry - I love being out in my boat on the water.