Stepping up: Annemarie Newth is the new chief medical officer at Echuca Regional Health.
Photo by
Shannon Colee
Dr Annemarie Newth is excited to deliver for the Echuca community in her new role of chief medical officer at Echuca Regional Health.
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Dr Newth, who has been at the hospital for the past 18 months, said she was “humbled and touched” when she realised how many of her colleagues supported her in the new position, which she began last month.
“I didn’t tell many people that I had applied and I’ve not had a single person in this hospital when I’ve walked around not stop me and say, ‘I’m so excited it was you’. And that’s just been amazing,” Dr Newth said.
“It’s important, I think, to recognise that because it also means that I need to do my best because they’ve put that faith and trust in me.”
Dr Newth said she had been told that her superpower was “creating calm from chaos” and hoped to use the skills she had learnt in the critical care area and her lifelong fix-it attitude to make real and substantial change.
“There’s not a lot of jobs where you actually see that in action all the time — the Emergency Department is one of those places, and this new job is my effort to do that on a grander scale,” she said.
No problem too big: Annemarie Newth is looking forward to using her fix-it attitude in her new role.
Photo by
Shannon Colee
She said she was passionate about “system change” and understood from her time in Echuca that despite managing “very effectively” to deliver “safe care for people everywhere” that there did need to be changes.
“I realise that stepping into this kind of a role is the start of a different career in terms of being able to have a much, much bigger impact,” she said.
“I think the system can improve and it will improve with the right things put in place. And I look forward to being a part of that.”
Born and raised in San Francisco, before moving to the homeland of her parents, New Zealand, for medical school, Dr Newth has always been one for adventure.
Even in Australia, she has managed to travel and work both in cities, in Melbourne and Brisbane, and regional areas.
She said “fundamentally it must always be remembered that the people that are in the health system at every level are there because they care” and that after years of working all over the world, that was something she had been “struck by everywhere”.
“The reason we keep going and the reason that Australians still get the very best healthcare that you could absolutely get is because people care,” she said.
Dr Newth said it had been particularly rewarding to take on this new role in Echuca where she has been able to maintain her connection to patients and other workers.
She said that in larger hospitals people in these larger administrative roles often were not able to continue being a mentor to other doctors, including interns.
“Even as an executive, you are not so distant from everyone. I still walk around the hospital every morning and see all my teams,” she said.
Dr Newth said that she would still work a couple of shifts each month in the Emergency Department.
“That’s really important in this role because I think if you lose touch with the coal face, I actually think you lose your effectiveness in this job. So that was really important to me,” she said.
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