UWA and me
Following in the footsteps of my sister, also a medical doctor and PhD student from UWA, studying medicine had been my dream since early high school. However, getting into medicine wasn’t easy for me. At 16 years old, I was younger than most when I first started university and had to try three times before successfully transferring from dentistry into medicine. I’m glad I persisted. When I reflect on some of the best memories from recent memory, the majority come from the seven years I spent at UWA, five of those in medical school.
I formed life-long friendships and a support network that has proved so valuable in my career and life after university. Though the years as a junior doctor can be difficult, I felt my time at UWA medical school prepared me well for the challenges of the real world and workplace.
Hope through hearing loss
Hearing loss resulting from chronic eardrum perforations can have a significant negative impact on lives, children’s education and communities. Exploring new technologies such as 3D printing and optical coherence tomography that can repair this problem faster, will be of benefit to many communities.
This research is at an interesting merging point between surgery, engineering and imaging science and I hope technologies arising from it can further contribute to Australia’s position as an emerging innovation powerhouse.
3D printing outside the box
With 3D printers now as cheap as $99 online for the casual hobbyist, compared to several thousands a few years ago, 3D printing recently captured the attention of many research groups and governments globally. This is particularly true in the medical device industries researching the printing of customised limbs, implants and basic organ structures.
Medicine can sometimes be quite structured, governed by patterns and rules, but my work with 3D printing encourages me to be creative and to think outside the box. It’s about learning, collaborating and stepping into different fields, new to me, such as tissue engineering and optical physics. I have so much to learn still, and a lot of mentoring to seek. The idea of 3D printing the ear drum requires much more ground work, but I find that the most interesting aspect: designing, testing feasibility, implementing a system, overseeing it with a clinician bird’s-eye view and working with other field experts.
About Hsern
Hsern is a medical doctor and researcher at the UWA School of Surgery through Ear Science Institute Australia. His dream is to one day be a travelling surgeon doing pro-bono work in developing nations. He graduated from UWA Medical School with Honours in 2014, after starting university with two years of dentistry.
He has a passion for research translation, innovation, and medical start-up, recently working with a team through SPARK Co-Lab to create a patented device that aims to lower the incidence of ventilator-associated pneumonia in ICU.
His PhD will investigate how we can repair chronic tympanic membrane (eardrum) perforations through 3D printing technology. He recently won the Westpac Future Leaders Scholarship to fund his PhD, giving him exposure to corporate networks, international experience and leadership development programs with the Australian Graduate School of Management. Outside of medicine, he loves composing music and enjoys playing the piano, saxophone and bass at his local church.