Viva to our Waikato anaesthetics registrars – Waikato DHB

Six anaesthetics registrars from Waikato Hospital passed their Part One FANZCA exam last week – a massive achievement that they spent a good part of a year preparing for.

Ciaran Barr, Lucy Johnstone, Greg Thomas, Katy McGinnity, Qi Wong, and Kate Roper started the examination process in August with two three-hour written exams. Having passed those successfully, they were invited to the “viva” in early October in Melbourne which consists of a gruelling set of three twenty-minute oral exams. At the vivas they are quizzed in considerable detail on aspects of physiology and pharmacology relevant to the practise of anaesthesia.

As Alan Crowther, consultant anaesthetist and supervisor of anaesthesia training at Waikato Hospital, puts it: “To say it is a difficult exam is an understatement – for most registrars this is most challenging undertaking in their entire career. The pass rate typically sits at around 60 percent, so getting six out of six through the viva is sensational.”

Now that these registrars have passed this exam they can progress to be advanced trainees – and look forward to a further three years of specialist training, with one more final exam – the Part Two clinical exam.

Today (16 October) is World Anaesthesia Day – which commemorates the first successful demonstration of ether anaesthesia on October 16, 1846. This ranks as one of the most significant events in the history of medicine and took place at the Massachusetts General Hospital, in Boston USA.

It has never been a safer time for anyone to have a major operation, in a large part due to the high standard of anaesthesia care that is delivered in Australia and New Zealand.

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