News Room

2020 was the last year of specialty training in urology at Port Moresby General Hospital for Dr. Damien Joseph Hasola, a doctor from Papua New Guinea, an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. He arrived in Taiwan in April, 2021 for a four-month clinical training at Changhua Christian Hospital.
In Papua New Guinea, young doctors who wish to obtain a medical specialist certificate must not only complete specialist training domestically but also at a reputable hospital abroad and then return to their home country to take the specialist certification examination. Most doctors choose to train closer to homes, such as in Australia, the United Kingdom or Singapore.
2020 was a challenging year for Papua New Guinea's medical training system. The COVID-19 pandemic is profoundly impacting the world, and almost every country went into lockdown and closed its borders to foreigners. Even later when pandemic slowed down and the world began to lift restrictions, the doctors who wanted to train abroad still needed to follow the government's epidemic prevention policy and rules as well as various epidemic prevention measures to ensure personal health and wellbeing.
Dr. Damien had a one-month short-term training at Changhua Christian Hospital in 2016. The hospital's comprehensive training process and friendly environment for foreign trainees convinced him to choose this place again as a place for overseas training. Therefore, after meeting the training requirements and preparing various documents, Dr. Damien submitted his application to Changhua Christian Hospital and the competent authorities for review and arranged to come to Taiwan after vetting and approval procedure.
After arriving in Taiwan, Damien followed the quarantine and self-health management regulations. In addition to daily temperature monitoring, he also has a negative PCR test result after completing quarantine before officially entering clinical training in urology. For Damien, even though it was more difficult for him to learn during the pandemic, he was still diligent in his studies, actively interacting with the attending physicians and other resident doctors in the department. He shadowed different attending physicians, learning about patient interviews and discussing cases before/after surgeries and related treatment options. He also highly commended medical professionalism, the hospital equipment, and the orderliness of the departments.
Dr. Damien has observed several urological surgeries, ranging from cystoscopy, ureteroscopic lithotripsy, da Vinci® Robotic Surgery, and other sophisticated and complex medical procedures. He was most interested in laparoscopic surgery, percutaneous nephrolithotomy (PCNL), kidney transplantation, and ultrasound guided fine needle aspiration. During the last month of his training, Damien was able to assist with PCNL, place and remove Double-J stents and other procedures under the supervision and guidance of the attending physician, and had more opportunities to learn about the signs of renal tumors.
During the four months training period, Dr. Damien said he undoubtedly benefited from theoretical and practical training in the specialty, learning new procedures and methods through surgery to enhance his skills and take his expertise to a whole new level. He returned to Port Moresby Hospital with new knowledge, new techniques, and a batch of donated medical supplies to begin to apply what he had learned to the clinical care of kidney disease patients.
In November 2021, Dr. Damien passed the urology qualifying examination in Australia. While bringing this good news, he also promised to continue applying his knowledge by teaching and sharing it with other young doctors. He dedicates to establishing a long-term collaboration between Changhua Christian Hospital and the University of Papua New Guinea School of Medicine to train more young medical specialists.
Dr. Damien is grateful to the urology team at Changhua Christian Hospital, the Overseas Medical Mission Center, and colleagues who assisted him during his training. He thinks that the overseas healthcare professionals training program should be continued so that more healthcare professionals in Papua New Guinea can participate and learn from the standardized procedures and solid healthcare education system in Taiwan hospitals, and become seed trainees to bring back to their own hospitals.