Mater Registrar Dr Collyer is part of the community

01/Mar/2018     Health

Meet Dr Jesse Collyer. Here outside Mater’s Duncombe Building, he’s almost come full circle.

Born in 1987 on Level 2 of the Duncombe Building, formerly the Mater Mothers’ Hospital, Jesse completed his internship, Junior House Officer and Senior House Officer years at Mater and has just begun training as an Anatomical Pathology Registrar on Level 3 in the same building.

We doubt Jesse’s mum could ever have imagined her son’s life would be so ‘Mater’ as she carried him out the front door all those years ago.

“Mum’s so proud that after all these years I’ve come back and I’m one of the doctors that works here.

“She can picture me working here even though she’s not been in the building for years,” Jesse said.

Jesse likes working at Mater because of its culture and says the people he’s worked with on the wards and medical teams have been fantastic.

“It makes you want to come to work and I appreciate it that bit more because I was very lucky to get placed here this year – I could have been sent anywhere around Queensland,” he said.

After finishing school Jesse thought he wanted to be a lab-based medical researcher but his interest in science and biology piqued when he realised he wanted to learn more about the conditions he was researching.

“I didn’t always want to become a doctor – I only decided that at the end of my Bachelor of Science degree,” he said.

“I realised that without clinical experience I found it hard to put medical research into context and I’ve always been more interested in diagnosis rather than treatment.”

His work at Mater sees close associations with Mater Mothers’ obstetricians, gynaecologists and gynaecologist/oncologists.

“Mater Mothers is one of the largest obstetric and gynaecological hospitals in Australia and we see a broad mix of pathology through our facility,” Jesse said.

“We have multidisciplinary team meetings to discuss complex cases, where the treating teams may include medical oncologists, gynaecological oncologists or radiation oncologists.

“Patients should feel reassured that all of these different specialties come together to discuss their case,” he said.

It’s clear Dr Jesse Collyer has a soft spot for Mater.

“Not only was I born here, but I live locally,” Jesse said.

“I’ve spent lots of time on the wards and you start to see familiar family names coming through. Maybe I’ve known one of their nephews that I went to school with at West End State School or something like that.

“I feel like I’m giving back to my local community and there are probably not a lot of trainee doctors that can say that in their early years,” he said.

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