A Delightful Interview

Recently as part of the 2022 Bowel Cancer Awareness Campaign, Channel 10's The Project ran a story lauding the work of a former student.

Dr Jacob McCormick was a student at St Virgil’s 1993-96. He was in the final St Virgil’s Year group to occupy the Barrack Street site. In that year he was captain of the swimming team and also represented SVC in water polo and cricket.  He went on to study Medicine at University of Tasmania (1999-2004) and gained Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery – MBBS. He moved to Melbourne and worked in several hospitals where he acquired a specialization in colorectal surgery.

Jacob has been part of the team at Peter MacCallum Clinic since March 2016.

The story detailed an interview of a healthy woman with a healthy one-year-old daughter.  But the prospect of that being so was highly unlikely. The woman was five months pregnant, when it was discovered that she had bowel cancer with a tumour the size of a baseball. Worse still – the foetus was pressing up against that part of the bowel where the tumour was located. The challenge was for the surgeon – Dr Jacob McCormick – to endeavour to safely remove the tumour without harming the unborn baby. It was an operation that he had not done before. He was able to move the mother’s womb aside and remove the tumour and then safely reposition the womb. A grateful mother – a skilled surgeon!

The Younger Brother

Daniel McCormick (SVC 1995-98)

Whilst at St Virgil’s Daniel was a prefect, a member of the Student Representative Council, won the Year 10 prize in Religious Studies and English, was part of the senior band, and was a member of the swimming and water polo teams.

Upon leaving the College, like his older brother, Jacob, Daniel went to the University of Tasmania to study medicine and graduated with Honours in 2006. He worked for two years in Launceston before moving to Melbourne in 2009 to pursue a career in surgery. 

He commenced specialist ENT (ear, nose and throat) training in 2010, and during the next five years, he rotated through the majority of the major Melbourne Hospitals gaining experience in Paediatrics, General and Specialist ENT through these placements. Daniel became a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons in 2015. His specialty has become Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery.

Daniel is now back in Hobart and working out of rooms at St John’s/Calvary Hospital in South Hobart.