I am a mature aged student with a background as a solicitor. Having been raised on an Aboriginal community and strongly encouraged by my uncles and aunts as an adolescent/teenager, I sought a career as a lawyer to help my people. My career included working as initially as an inhouse bank lawyer, then a lawyer in private practise, to a government lawyer in Queensland and work in Aboriginal community organisations, then to a government lawyer in the Northern Territory, then finally back to Aboriginal community organisations in NSW.

My decision to pursue a career change as a medical doctor developed from a combination of numerous experiences, however it was my working in child protection, that was the ultimate stimulus to committing to return to university to study medicine.

This experience involved in 2012, two children from one family, under the age of 5 years, being removed from a young Aboriginal mother and being placed with their non-Aboriginal Father’s mother in Brisbane, Queensland, notwithstanding the significant change(s) the mother had made to resolve/improve the grounds the children being removed initially.

Coupled with the above was continually observing numerous family and other community members my own age and younger, succumbing to a myriad of preventable conditions.

Coupled with my own personal and familial life experiences and having worked in both the public sector within child protection and in Indigenous community not for profit organisations, I am very well aware of the challenges my people face generally and more specifically health.

This insight was even more acutely made clear with a recent elective placement in paediatrics in Darwin Hospital in the Northern Territory where I observed numerous Indigenous children being afflicted with Rheumatic heart disease. Adding to this is the fact that I have both nieces and nephews afflicted with this condition

My plan from the outset of my studies has been to attain a solid grounding in my undergraduate medical studies, internship and residency years that would sustain my future career as a general practitioner working an Aboriginal medical service in the Northern Territory, preferably in or around ‘Top End’.

In due course, practising as a medical doctor is but one aspect to helping my people. Other aspects include demonstrating that as a mature aged Aboriginal man that it is possible to change careers and/or attain a medical qualification. Further, to facilitate education on options to my people to fully comprehend and take control of their health by providing information on the condition and ways that its progress may be altered. Finally, to travel to, and work in, communities enabling ready access to medical service(s).