2023 WA Rural Health Excellence Awards - Specialist of the Year (Non-GP)

2023 WA Rural Health Excellence Awards - Specialist of the Year (Non-GP)

Congratulations to the finalists for the Specialist of the Year (non GP) Award category:

  • Dr Jared Watts WA Country Health Service – Kununurra
  • Dr Pushpika Gunaratne WA Country Health Service – Goldfields
  • Dr Angela Alessandri WA Country Health Service – Great Southern.

Dr Jared Watts

The rural chapter of Dr Jared Watts’ career began with a full circle moment - completing his medical training in Broome, at the hospital he was delivered in as a baby, working alongside the midwife who delivered him.??

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This led to his dream job as a Specialist Obstetrician and Gynaecologist in the

Kimberley.??He currently heads the obstetrics and gynaecology department in the Kimberley and is also the Director for obstetrics and gynaecology at WA Country Health Service.??Jared is passionate about teaching and is a Medical Coordinator and Senior?Lecturer at the Rural Clinical School at UWA.??

Jared is heavily involved with the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. He currently co-chairs a Joint Committee for GP Obstetrics and Certification Regional Fellows. ?

Jared also volunteers internationally, teaching in Cambodia and Laos, and as an obstetrics and gynaecology specialist for Medicine Sans Frontiers in Nigeria, Syria and soon to be Sierra Leone.?

The Kimberley Aboriginal women he treats during remote outreach clinics, affectionately call him the ‘ladies’ doctor’, welcoming him into the sacred space of ‘secret women’s business’.??

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Dr Pushpika (Chandimal) Gunaratne

Dr Pushpika (Chandimal) Gunaratne, originally from Sri Lanka, has been working in Australia since February 2008 and was awarded his AMC Certificate in 2013.???

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He received his Fellowship of the RoyalAustralasian College of Physicians, Paediatric and Child Health Division in 2018.?

He has broad experience working in remote Aboriginal communities, including at WA Country Health Service’s Kalgoorlie and Hedland Health Campuses, and is passionate about improving health outcomes of vulnerable children.???

?Pushpika has experience in working across multiple paediatric departments in WA, with a proven record of delivering high standards of care.???

?He was appointed Senior Paediatric Registrar at the Kalgoorlie Health Campus (KHC) in 2018. It was here he recognised a service delivery gap across Norseman and Esperance. He established a Paediatric Clinic to enable vulnerable patients to access care closer to home in these towns.??

?Pushpika commenced as Head of Department, Paediatrics at Kalgoorlie Health Campus in 2021.? ?

He is also the Director of Clinical Training in the Goldfields and took on this role due a passion for training doctors in country communities and supporting international medical graduates.? ?

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Dr Angela Alessandri

Dr Angela Alessandri obtained her Bachelor of Medicine/Bachelor of Surgery from UWA in 1989 and completed her training in paediatrics in Western Australia, the UK and Canada.?

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For sixteen years from 2001, Angela held the position of Paediatric Haematologist and Oncologist with the Child and Adolescent Health Service. This included being Head of Department from 2012 to 2015.??

Angela became an Associate Professor in Professionalism and Clinical Governance at the University of Notre Dame in 2015. After teaching full time in this capacity in 2017, she returned to clinical medicine as a locum Consultant General Paediatrician, largely in regional areas around Australia.? Angela joined WA Country Health Service, as a visiting Consultant General Paediatricia in the Great Southern in 2019. ?

In 2020, she relocated to Albany to work in the new role of Consultant General Paediatrician at the Albany Health Campus. She subsequently held the position of Head of Department of the Great Southern Integrated Paediatric Service.?

In addition, Angela remains an active member of the Child and Adolescent Health Clinical Ethics Service and the Doctors’ Health Advisory Service of WA.??

Angela is very proud and privileged to have had the opportunity to spearhead the establishment and expansion of the Great Southern Integrated Paediatric Service, based at the Albany Health Campus.??

She has worked with an exceptional group of passionate colleagues to build a multidisciplinary team to provide 24-hour inpatient and outpatient services for the children of the Great Southern. This has had the added benefit of creating a range of exciting training opportunities for doctors in the Great Southern to improve their paediatric medicine skills.?


John Campbell Murdoch

Emeritus Professor at The University of Western Australia

1 年

That’s our boy! Well done Jared!

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