Sydney Adventist Hospital Surgeon Is Finalist in Women of the Year Awards

By: Adventist Record, and Adventist Review

A Sydney Adventist Hospital (San) surgeon has been announced as a finalist in the 2019 New South Wales (NSW) Women of the Year Awards in Australia.

Ear, nose, and throat surgeon Payal Mukherjee is one of four finalists for the NSW Premier’s Woman of the Year, an award that recognizes an exceptional achiever who has made a significant contribution to NSW and is a strong role model for other women.

Professor Mukherjee is the deputy chair of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS) NSW State Committee, the ENT Research lead at the Institute of Academic Surgery at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, and a member of the Meniere’s Research Fund (Sydney Medical School).

As a clinical associate professor at the University of Sydney and an adjunct professor at the University of Wollongong, Mukherjee places particular importance on research and teaching. She has also been a strong advocate in promoting surgical innovation and in gender equity in surgery, as well as calling attention to domestic violence affecting patients and health-care workers.

Mukherjee is at the forefront of using new technologies, including augmented reality, virtual reality, and 3D printing, to transform the health-care system.

As a mother to a young daughter, she is passionate about education and literacy development. She is committed to inspiring young women to pursue STEMM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine) careers in surgery and medical technology.

The 2019 NSW Women of the Year Awards will be presented at a ceremony in Sydney on the eve of International Women’s Day, Thursday, March 7.

This is not the first time a woman working at the Seventh-day Adventist health-care institution located in Wahroonga, NSW, has been shortlisted for the award. In 2017, the San’s surgeon Catherine Birman was honored with the Woman of the Year Award by NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian.

According to the San’s sources, associate professor Birman is one of the most experienced cochlear implant surgeons in the world. As of early 2017 she had performed more than a thousand cochlear implant procedures, including more than 200 at the Adventist hospital.

This story is based on two reports posted on the Adventist Recordnews site.