A decision to change careers led Dr Julian Luna and Dr Jennifer Luna to find love in medicine and together.
While medicine interested the husband-wife doctor duo, it wasn’t their first career choice. Jennifer started out as a sonographer and Julian a firefighter.
Soon they would discover the medical limitations in their roles would be the catalyst to pursuing medicine.
“While I was undertaking firefighting training about 95% of our call outs were for medical emergencies,” Julian said.
“We were limited to what medical procedures we could perform, so it was a mix of finding the medical side more interesting, wanting to do more of it and employment prospects that I decided to go back to university.”
Julian and Jennifer met as first year medical students at Griffith University and by their third year were husband and wife and each others greatest supporter.
The pair commenced their internship at Mackay Base Hospital at the start of the year and have just returned from a rotation in Bowen.
“We really enjoyed working at Bowen Hospital, the work environment was lovely and being in a rural area there was a lot of autonomy to the role,” Jennifer said.
“There was a lot of emergency medicine which often meant you were the primary doctor and managed the patient from the beginning.”
Their placement in Bowen also proved to be a beneficial for their married life.
“One of the nice things about Bowen was our schedules were pretty much identical,” Julian said.
“There are a lot of benefits for our personal growth carrying out our training in a regional area.
“Having the continuity of knowing the people you work with and knowing the internal workings of the hospital is a great comfort when you are starting your career,” he said.
Julian has started this rotation in anaesthetics, an area he hopes to specialise in. Jennifer is currently in paediatrics and is weighing up becoming a GP or working in emergency medicine.
