A year in WA Health

It’s a year since I joined WA’s Health Team – and I’m a firm believer of using anniversaries to look back and take stock. I joined as an account executive into what was a fairly new, but clearly ambitious health team. It was a daunting but exciting move.

Every company sells itself as a great company to work at. ‘Growing’. ‘Ambitious’. ‘Fun’. The usual selling points. For some companies, this is either wishful thinking or shrewd marketing.

It can be difficult in interviews to get the true sense of a workplace. All the same, I felt confident when I started working at WA that I had made the right choice and found a workplace where I could not only develop professionally – but also enjoy doing so.

And so, a year in, I can comfortably and confidently say that the gut instinct was right.

WA has a knack for attracting talented people who get along well and can work hard together but also genuinely enjoy going for drinks at the end of the week.

My background isn’t in healthcare. I’m a politics geek at heart. And the last year has pushed me to learn a huge amount. But working in this fast-paced environment has fast-tracked my learning and experiences.

I look back and can tick off my key ask of this job, which was to work on genuinely interesting and intellectually stimulating work every day; writing insightful reports and patient booklets, holding exacting but ultimately rewarding roundtables and events both in our office and in parliament, and advising them on strategic challenges. Just this week we supported a parliamentary event where Parliamentarians had their faces scanned to see skin damage.

Winning pitches and being nominated for awards have been particular highlights for me as well – and are the start of a trend I think we’re definitely going to continue.

Its genuinely impressive to watch how quickly my colleagues can get up to speed – and help me to as well – with the terminology and details of incredibly complex challenges. It’s always been important for me to be in a job where I can develop my knowledge and expertise – and though it sounds cliché I really do feel lucky to be in a position to learn so much from my colleagues every day.

I’m looking forward to the start of my second year at WA, and taking into consideration how the team has developed since I joined –  I’m confident that it’ll be even better than the first.