TPCH junior doctor takes out 30 under 30 title

Helena took out a place in the Forbes 30 under 30 list

Orthopaedic surgery Principal House Officer Helena Franco has ticked off a lot in her first three decades on this earth, and she can now add a prestigious Forbes 30 under 30 accolade to the list.

The 29-year-old The Prince Charles Hospital junior doctor is currently vying for a place on the orthopaedics program, having honed her passion for the area after many great placements around Brisbane as well as completing her Masters in Medical Sciences in global health delivery at Harvard University.

During her time at Harvard, she was further inspired to look at innovative new ways of working, something she hopes to take through her career and further cemented her love of orthopaedics.

“It’s pretty cool to be named in the list, I got the email when I was sitting outside the operating room so it was a very nice surprise,” Helena said.

“I think my inclusion in the list was to do with an annual competition at Harvard, which is a knock-out system where you go through rounds to pitch your idea through the innovation lab. Our idea was a smart patch for incontinence that would prevent patients having to come to hospital for treatment and so they could receive the stimulation and treatment at home.

“We have a prototype of it now and it’s about to start clinical trials soon, so it’s exciting.”

Helena is one of just a handful of women working in orthopaedics, with only 4 per cent of the profession made up of women in Australia.

That said, she says she’s got some great role models and she’s determined to bump the numbers up slightly by getting a place on the program.

“I have always liked interventional medicine and I knew I wanted to work with kids and adults, but in my last two weeks of medical school I saw a hip replacement and that for me was my ‘aha’ moment,” she said.

“I love orthopaedics because it is fulfilling and team-based and no two days are the same, and I enjoy the research and innovation side of orthopaedics too – The Prince Charles Hospital is a good example of that because we do see so much innovation in this space.”