Medical Staff

Hawkesbury District Health Service medical staff comprise of Career Medical Officers (CMO) and Visiting Medical Officers (VMO). We are also a teaching hospital for medical students.

Visiting Medical Officers (VMO)

VMOs work within specific specialties such as Neurology, Orthopaedics, or Obstetrics. They see patients in their private practice rooms and have admitting rights to Hawkesbury District Health Service for both public and private patients. Private patients are admitted under the VMO (specialist) of their choice. Public patients are admitted under the care of the VMO on duty. For details of our VMOs and their contact details please see our VMO directory.

Career Medical Officers (CMO)

Hospitalists, or Career Medical Officers as they are known at HDHS, are employed as senior medical officers, specialising in all areas of hospital medicine rather than just one specialty. They are employed full time by the hospital rather than as consultants.

The definition of Hospitalist is "a physician whose primary professional focus is the medical care of hospitalized patients". As Hospitalists, doctors in clinical practice have the opportunity to develop skills & experience in a wide variety of specialties, including anaesthetics, emergency medicine, & surgery as an alternative to general practice or specialising in a single field. The hosptialist model of training & development provides qualifies doctors with an additional career pathway. Traditionally, doctors in clinical practice had to choose between specialising in a particular field of medicine or becoming a General Practitioner (GP). The hosptialist model allows the establishment & development of a different type of doctor.

SWAHS & HDHS have an established partnership that provides rotation & training programs to their medical staff and for some time have been considering expanding this partnership to include a hospitalist program. With the current workforce crisis in NSW, the hospitalist model will offer a wider pool of future employees as medical officers with a firm foundation in general hospital practice  experience.

Medical Students

2010 saw the commencement of clinical training for final year medical students from University of Notre Dame Australia, School of Medicine Sydney to undertake terms in Medicine, Surgery, Obstetrics, Paediatrics and Community General Practice. Students are exposed to a large variety of clinical scenarios in the discipline they are attached to, with substantial exposure to other disciplines such as Radiology, Physiotherapy and Pharmacy.