Jed Castle, La Trobe Student – Bachelor of Health Information Management
What are your background and interests and how did these lead to your enrolment in the in Bachelor of HIM? Are you currently working? If so, what are you doing?
I am a born and bred Geelong boy by heart, growing up down by the bay. I got my first job scanning old medical records at a small gastroenterology practice, and then moved on to the Emergency Department at the local private hospital. I’m currently working at Austin Health in their Emergency Department and Switchboard. I’m living on campus at La Trobe while studying the bachelor’s degree in Health Information Management.
I chose to study the bachelor’s degree as it combined two of my favourite things. Technology & Health. Before discovering HIM, I had originally planned to study Information Technology, but when I saw that HIM could combine both passions, I had to jump at the opportunity!
In my downtime, I volunteer as a Rotarian, and enjoy hanging out with some of my friends that also live on campus.
In 5 years, I see myself working in Health Informatics, working with EMRs and other digital systems in the Hospital Setting, however, the dream job for me is Victorian Chief Health Officer or working within the Australian Digital Health Agency. I think working in either of these positions would be incredibly interesting and would be fascinating to work with Australia’s Digital Health transformation.
What are you enjoying most about the degree?
While I’m only in my first year, I’ve really enjoyed the Healthcare in Australia subject, it was an awesome overview of how the Australian Health System works, and really consolidated my knowledge and filled the gaps in from my previous work experience. I’m excited to start looking at EMR rollout and Management, as well as looking further at using Data Analytics to solve specific problems. I think the biggest challenge for me in the course so far has been Statistics. I’m not very mathematically talented so it took me some time to understand it, but it was very enjoyable and quite a welcomed challenge!
