BACK TO CONTENTS
CLOSE-UP
Yes, she’s that Fiona Working on the frontline with COVID-19 patients, Professor Fiona Lake tells Ara Jansen that patient care is both the biggest honour and challenge in medicine.
When you’re a WA doctor named Fiona, you might have to get used to being ‘the other Dr Fiona’. No, not Dr Fiona Wood, who worked tirelessly with burns victims after the 2002 bombing in Kuta. And not Dr Fiona Stanley either, for whom the Fiona Stanley Hospital is named. Still, when people walk past Dr Fiona Lake in the street and casually say “Hey Fiona, thanks for your work in Bali” she has learnt to acknowledge the compliment. ‘Don’t worry’, one of the other Fionas advised, ‘accept the praise, graciously’. But all that has changed over the past couple of months because while Dr Fiona Lake might have had the lesser celebrity public profile of the three, her professional profile is undisputed, as is her work in the area of respiratory health as a consultant in the Department of Respiratory Medicine at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital. 10 | SEPTEMBER 2020
Fiona was on call on the weekend in late February this year when Charlie’s received its first COVID-19 cases from the Diamond Princess cruise ship. Along with Dr Chris Kosky and Dr Anna Tai, the trio volunteered to be the frontline physicians to respond to the pandemic. They assessed and facilitated the care of patients who presented with fever or flu-like symptoms, even if the underlying disease process wasn’t a respiratory one. To minimise staff to patient contact, these doctors provided primary patient care around the clock, until they were proven COVID negative. As part of their Stars of COVID-19 campaign, a recent post by the WA branch of the Australasian College of Health Service Management MEDICAL FORUM | RESPIR ATORY HEALTH ISSUE
