During your stay

All rooms for overnight patients have a system known as a ‘cockpit’.

This simple-to-use computer has a number of features, including:

• internet access
• telephone, including free local calls
• call button for your nurse
• meal ordering services
• patient entertainment, including free high-speed Wi-Fi for patients and guests; select MUH-WLAN-Guest on your device, and you will be prompted to accept use policy (if not prompted please enter guest.wifi into your browser).You will need to re-connect every 24 hours
• Netflix, Stan and Foxtel available for use with your personal account; enter your account information into the appropriate service to access your content
• headphone jack available to use with your own headphones (standard 3.5mm headphone jack required).

You can use your personal mobile phone, however, please limit usage in shared areas.

Our team of expert chefs prepare five-star-rated healthy meals every day, under the guidance of a dietitian and our executive chef.

If you are staying overnight, you can order all your meals using the cockpit in your room.

The cockpit will show you the menu for the day, including photos, and meal options for people with special dietary requirements.

There are a number of comfortable lounge areas around the hospital that patients and visitors can use.

If you want a change of scene from your room, the lounge area on level 3 opens onto a large outdoor courtyard.

There is a café and a pharmacy on the ground floor, where you can purchase newspapers, magazines, flowers and gifts.

An automatic teller machine is located at the entrance to the pharmacy and café on the ground floor.

We want to ensure you are as pain-free as possible. If you have had surgery, it is important you get regular and timely pain relief.

If you do not feel like your pain is being controlled, please speak to your nurse.

If you take any regular medication (including non-prescription medications) you should discuss this with your doctor.

You may need specific instructions regarding which medications you should stop taking and which you should continue.

Generally, you should take your regular morning medication at 6am with a sip of water.

If your procedure is in the afternoon, and you usually take your medication at lunchtime, you should take those at 11am with a sip of water.

Exceptions:

Aspirin and anti inflammatory medications

Patients attending Cardiac Catheterisation Laboratory (e.g. for coronary angiogram/stent, electrophysiology studies) should continue taking aspirin, clopidogrel (Plavix or Iscover) or warfarin unless instructed otherwise by your cardiologist.

All other patients should cease taking these medicines 10 days prior to your procedure unless you are taking it for your heart or for stroke prevention. If you are taking aspirin, clopidogrel (Plavix or Iscover), warfarin or anticoagulants for a heart condition or stroke prevention, you should seek specific instructions from your surgeon and cardiologist as to when or if these medications should be ceased.

Patients with coronary artery stents, any vascular stent or cardiac implant should discuss with their cardiologist or surgeon before ceasing the drugs listed above.

Diabetic medications

Patients attending the Cardiac Catheterisation Laboratory or the Radiology Department who are taking the diabetes medication metformin may need to cease metformin 48 hrs prior to certain procedures. Your doctor or nursing staff in these departments will advise if this applies to you.

For all patients, it is important that you discuss diabetes medication instructions with your doctor prior to your procedure.

Herbal (complementary/alternative) medicines

If you are having a procedure, you should cease taking these medicines for 10 days prior to your procedure unless otherwise instructed by your doctor.

Smoking is not permitted within the hospital or clinic grounds.

As a health service, we're committed to promoting good health. As a result, the Hospital and Clinic are smoke free environments.

Please speak to your doctor if you feel you will experience difficulties if you are not able to smoke whilst on campus.

The Macquarie MD (Doctor of Medicine) program is a four-year program that commenced in 2018 with a cohort of 50 students. It builds on MQ Health’s original vision for medical training to provide an alternative model to traditional programs that depend almost exclusively on large public teaching hospitals.

As a private hospital and clinics that are part of Australia’s first university-led fully integrated health precinct – MQ Health – we provide a unique setting for training the next generation of doctors. Since 2019, the Hospital and Clinics have played a key role in the training of MD students as they undertake clinical placements at both sites.

Partnering with patients

Partnerships with patients and communities are vital to any tertiary medical training. At MQ Health, we partner with our patients and their families throughout their healthcare journey. Our clinical programs and services coordinate patients’ needs from initial consultation at primary care and specialist clinics, imaging and allied health through to inpatient hospital treatment if required. Our MD clinical placement program is part of supporting a patient during this journey, where their care and comfort are of top priority. Interactions between our students and our patients – always under the supervision of a fully qualified doctor – are designed to be mutually beneficial.

Benefits to patients

Macquarie MD’s teaching and training program brings scaled-up services and scaled-up care for patients. The presence of students in a clinical setting can stimulate medical teams and supervisors to keep abreast of new developments and consolidate their knowledge as they respond to teaching needs and students’ eagerness to learn. Students can provide an extra set of hands, support a consultant to provide additional or faster service to a patient, and be on hand to answer additional patient questions. Given MQ Health’s academically driven model of care in an integrated healthcare environment, the high quality of training has flow-on effects for the quality of care that we provide to our patients.

Patient privacy

Macquarie MD student clinical placements have been established to meet the highest standards of professional conduct and the Code of Conduct as laid out by the Medical Board of Australia. Patient respect, support and privacy are central to the MQ Health way of working. Respectful and effective communication is part of our doctor training with listening, provision of information, discussion, and language and cultural communication needs all of key importance. We recognise that patients may not always be comfortable with visitation or observation by our medical students. If patient’s participation is requested, they have the right to decline.

For more information please contact our student placement support co-ordinator at T: 02 9850 2862

Download a copy of the Macquarie MD clinical placement brochure.