Hospital Ultimate Guide (HUG)
St George
Welcome to the St George HUG! This guide has heaps of super valuable information and advice about how to make the most out of your hospital placements.
Feel free to add in any advice you have to help out your fellow Meddies, both present and future and keep this guide up to date! This can include anything from places to go in the hospital to really improve your skills, ward rounds to join, good Faculty contacts, the best spots for food, drink and parking nearby and more!
Note: Please keep these guides secure and accessible to UNSW Medicine students only. While contributions are anonymous, please be sensitive when discussing Faculty members and refrain from including any confidential information about patients. Information provided is a matter of opinion and does not necessarily reflect the view of UNSW MedSoc.
Original version written in 2021 by | Angela Xue, Josh Lowinger, Stephanie So-Jung Shim, Natalie Lee |
Edited in 2022 by |
Contents
Alternative modes of transport 3
Accessing ward lists/patient results 5
How to approach upper year students 6
What can the clinical school help me with? 6
Housekeeping
Where to park
All day parking near the hospital is quite limited. In the nearby streets around the hospital timed parking can be found (mostly 2P max). Make sure that if you do decide to park in these zones, you MUST move your car after 2 hours. Council parking officers regularly patrol the region and yes, many of us have
been greeted by a lovely $100+ fine sitting on our windscreen wipers.
The best location to look for all-day parking near the hospital (refer to Map 1) is on Marshall St, Lachal Ave (access via President Ave) or Green St. These streets offer all day parking, however, they may be full depending on what time you arrive. If this is the case, you may have to drive slowly through the streets coming off Fairway Ave until you find a spot. Usually, the later you arrive at the hospital, the further away from the hospital you will end up having to park. Remember to take into account as part of your commute time that it is often a 10-15 minute walk from where you’ve parked to the hospital entrance/common room.
can
Map 1. Streets with all day parking available (red highlight) and location of the student common room (sparkly greenish blue X).
Other options
- Cross st + any of the lanes coming off it
- Railway st (suitable if you're there before 7am - all the staff are fighting for it)
Alternative modes of transport
If you choose to commute to the hospital via public transport, it is about a 10 minute walk from Kogarah station (from station platform to Belgrave street entrance). There are plenty of shops en route for you to get your morning coffee on the way to that 8am ward round. From fresh sushi rolls to Vietnamese pork rolls and your typical cafe food, Kogarah will not disappoint your tummy!
Navigating the hospital
St George Hospital comprises two main structures: the Tower Block (older building) and the Acute Services Building (aka ASB, the newer building). Tower Block has traditional hospital wings (South, West, East, North), while ASB has two buildings (A, B). You can move between Tower Block and ASB on the Ground floor, or via the corridors on Level 1 or 2. You are generally not able to move between the Tower Block and ASB via other floors of the hospital.
The hospital can be accessed via one of three main entrances:
- Gray Street: the main entrance to the hospital, closest to the ED, can easily access Tower Block or ASB from here
- Belgrave Street: entrance closest to the student common room, can easily access Tower Block or ASB from here
- Kensington Street: entrance closest to Kogarah station, can easily access ASB from here (this entrance takes you to Level 1 ASB rather than Ground floor).
Map 2. Layout of the hospital. Important: (1) Tower Block, (2) ASB, (18) Clinical Teaching Unit (CTU where tutorials are held), (27) Student common room
Tower Block
- 1S: Gynaecology
- 2: Birth Unit
- 2S: Colorectal/Liver Surgery
- 3S: Upper GI/Breast/Endocrine Surgery
- 3E: General Medicine
- 3W: Orthopaedics
- 4W: Dialysis
- 4S: Gastroenterology
- 5W: Cardiology
- 5S: Vascular Surgery, Urology, Cardiothoracics
- 6S: Neurology
- 6W: Rehabilitation
- 7S and 7W: Aged Care
renal, endocrinology, haem, onc
Acute Services Building
- 2: Operating Theatres
- 6B: Respiratory
- 7A: Oncology
- 7B: ID/Immunology, Rheum, Endo
Food and beverages
Coffee
- Buying coffee: depending on how picky you are, the coffee available at the hospital is decent (one near Belgrave St entrance which has seats available, and another one near the Gray St entrance), however just down the road there are many local coffee shops for you to try out and pick your favourite. Culture Bean (the one near ED) is probably the most popular. Pulse is also good and close to the common room.
- Free instant coffee and tea available in the CTU and common room but try to bring your own mug
- If you run out of coffee, milk, cups, sugar, or even if the toaster is broken, just see the admin at CTU.
Food
- Bringing food: there is a fridge, sandwich press and microwave in the common room if you are bringing food from home.
- Buying food: There are plenty of shops near the train station/Kogarah library where you can buy lunch during your break! Includes: Vietnamese food (would highly recommend the banh mi), Japanese food (pre good sushis and deals in the afternoon), Thai food, dumplings at Baba Wu’s Dumpling Hut (show them your student ID for a discount), chicken (El Janah’s or Hariri’s), Subway
How to page
There’s a LAN page system (can be found on the desktop of any hospital computer), but students generally do not need to use it. If you need to call a doctor, ask one of the nurses to page them for you. Ideally if you email your supervisor a few days before you’re supposed to start your term, they will let you know who to contact and how to contact them. To call Switch, press 9 on any hospital phone.
Lowkey dont ever need to page
Accessing ward lists/patient results
There is one computer in the student common room, and a few up in the hospital library on the 1st floor in the same building as the student common room that you can access eMR from. You will get a 3-hour introductory tute on eMR. Only about 20% of that will be directly relevant to you, and most of learning how to use eMR comes from exposure on the wards.
There are multiple eMR computers on every ward. You can log into any of them.
How to join a ward round
Just walk in, introduce yourself and tag along with the team.
Generally, med ward rounds start around 8am and surg ward rounds at 7am, but this varies depending on the team and sometimes day as well.
How to watch a surgery
You will get an orientation, but here’s the gist.
Find out what surgeries are on by looking at the list (in a big binder on the table at the entrance). They print out the list one day ahead.
Or look at the board for changes to the list
Or ask the doctors on the ward if anyone is going to surgery. This is a good idea so you can talk to the patient beforehand, know what time the surgery is going to be, visit the anaesthetic bay etc.
OT starts at 8am, and they will let students in at 8:15.
- Go to level 2 of Acute Services Building
- Sign in at the window. Trade in your ID for the change room card. Get scrubbed up.
- Go back to window, get a red shower cap, join surgery
How to approach upper year students
Upper years can be found in their natural habitats, namely: on the wards, having lunch in the common room, in the library upstairs or slacking off elsewhere. Just come up to us and be friendly, we are nice people.
For Coursework students, there is a whiteboard in the common room where students can request upper years to teach on various topics, or contact your 3rd year rep who can liaise with the 5th/6th yr rep to facilitate tutorials.
What can the clinical school help me with?
Everything. They organise tutes, chase up doctors when they don’t show up, organise sessions for you to fill your log books, organise bedside tutes, restock the milk and coffee and cups, etc.
For any questions or clarifications please contact:
Emily Ma (Year 3 Rep)
Noosha Litkouhi (Year 5 Rep)
Tiana Tambyrajah and Zoe Yoong (6th Year rep)
Contacts
St George CTU: stgtu@unsw.edu.au
Rachel and Claudia are the administrators of the St George CTU! They are extremely helpful and responsive. Contact them to sort out any class clashes, assign a bedside tutor, or any other troubles you have with clinical teaching.
Rachel and Claudia are the best.
University of New South Wales Medical Society ∙ ABN 33475810190 ∙ www.medsoc.org.au