Author :: Michael Tam
 |
Dr Michael Tam B.Sc.(Med), M.B., B.S. (University of NSW), F.R.A.C.G.P., GradCert.M.H.(GP) Conjoint Lecturer, University of NSW |
At “The Medicine Box”
- Website administrator
- Contributor
- Editor
Read all articles by Michael Tam
Undergraduate experience
Michael Tam is a medical doctor in New South Wales, Australia. He studied medicine at the University of New South Wales, Sydney and graduated in December 2002. Clinical attachments during his undergraduate training were primarily at Liverpool Hospital though there were numerous rotations to other Sydney hospitals (including St. Vincent’s Public Hospital, St. George Hospital, Bankstown Hospital and Campbelltown Hospital) and to rural NSW (Albury Base Hospital, Wagga Wagga Base Hospital, and Broken Hill Base Hospital).
(Willowra from the air. The yellow stripe that crosses the photo is the almost always dry river that Willowra is on the banks of.)
Michael’s undergraduate “elective term” was in a small 300-person remote Aboriginal community called Willowra on the border of the Tanami Desert approximately 370 km north-west of Alice Springs where he provided primary health care to the inhabitants in a nurse run clinic for 2 months. As per Wikipedia, the Tanami Desert is “one of the most isolated and arid places on Earth”. There is immense social and health disadvantage to the local Indigenous population with the result that these people have some of the worst health outcomes anywhere in the world.
Postgraduate experience
Medical internship and residency was based in the former Illawarra Area Health Service (now conglomerated into the mega South East Sydney and Illawarra Area Health Service), primarily at The Wollongong Hospital and Shellharbour Hospital. The Wollongong Hospital at that time suffered with the problem faced by many out-of-Sydney Hospitals of understaffing. The flip side and silver lining of limited supervision however, was greater opportunity and experience and many of the articles on this website are inspired by real events or by what Michael perceives as “an area of need” for interns and residents.
While in the Illawarra, Michael held the position of Secretary of The Wollongong Hospital Resident Medical Officer (RMO) Association. The RMO Association at that period enjoyed some notoriety of being relatively active at an industrial level and was able to effect many changes to the benefit of junior medical officers.
General Practice training
In his PGY2 (RMO1) year, Michael applied for general practice training and was accepted by the former Sydney Institute of General Practice Education and Training (SIGPET), the central Sydney GP training consortium – with the training year beginning in 2005. As part of his training, Michael worked for six months in a special skills term in aged care and rehabilitation medicine at Coledale District Hospital. He spent a further six months working in paediatrics at the Sydney Children’s Hospital, Randwick.
In 2006, Michael worked in community general practice in Darlinghurst, Sydney, at the former “407 Doctors” practice (which specialised in sexual health, HIV medicine, drug and alcohol, and mental health); and at Gilgandra Medical Practice in Gilgandra, a rural township of NSW (with Dr Patrick Giltrap, RACGP GP of the year 2005). This practice covered more general family medicine with an emphasis on aged care. Michael also worked at Gilgandra District Hospital/Multipurpose Facility as a VMO (visiting medical officer).
Michael completed his mentorship term in the Clifford Street Family Medical Practice in Mosman, and Glebe Family Medical Practice in Glebe, and successfully passed the RACGP (Royal Australian College of General Practitioners) examinations in April/May 2007. He was admitted as a Fellow of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (F.R.A.C.G.P.) in October of the same year.
Currently, he works as a full-time General Practitioner at Glebe Family Medical Practice and runs a half-day clinic at one of the local aged care hostels weekly.
Career interests
Michael’s career interests tend towards the nebulous cluster of aged care, rehabilitation, musculoskeletal medicine, chronic pain management and mental health. In 2007, he completed the Graduate Certificate in Mental Health (GP) with the NSW Institute of Psychiatry and plans to eventually complete a clinical masters.
Michael has a strong interest in medical education and internet based resources. While in the preclinical years at medical school, Michael started an anatomy notes website for medical students, “Medical Students’ Retreat” with a number of friends. This website, “The Medicine Box” was started in March 2006 and is aimed to provide practice hints and tips to junior medical officers (primarily interns, residents and senior medical students). A six-month analysis of the website goal, designs and results was published as a book, “The Creation of The Medicine Box” in August 2006.
Michael teaches medical students on their general practice rotations. He is a clinical associate of the University of Sydney and holds an appointment as a Conjoint Lecturer in the School of Public Health and Community Medicine with the University of NSW.
Other interests
Michael has a strong interest in digital imaging and video and was previously a moderator of VideoHelp.com, the largest amateur online forum and community for video editing and authoring. He has been a member of the website also since its inception. Michael was heavily involved with the open source VCD (Video-CD) authoring community in 2002/2003 and contributed to the development of one of the best open source VCD authoring programs of the time; VCDImager. He released a Windows front-end to the command console tools called VCDImager Tools GUI with the latest release in late 2004.
In late 2005, Michael launched and hosted the inaugural VideoHelp.com Short Film Competition, an internet based international short film competition. Entries were submitted from around the world from the United States to Iran!
Michael’s other interests include biomedical news, technology, as well international politics and law and justice. This culminated into his regular blog site, “vitualis’ Medical Rants” where he posts regular articles that detail new developments in the biomedical world or rants on social justice and equality (or lack thereof). Michael has an unashamed left-leaning social agenda in many of his authored works. This blog has fallen by the way in recent years.
He is a keen reader and enjoys both fiction (science fiction particularly) and non-fiction. Michael’s favourite authors are Frank Herbert, Noam Chomsky and Richard Dawkins.
Michael is an avid cyclist and generally commutes to work on his bicycle. He enjoys road cycling and touring and is the proud owner of a custom built and hand painted Pegoretti Responsorium Ciavete.
Updated: 6 May 2009
