2022 will be the beginning of my post graduate education in medicine and y the start of 2026 I will be a fully qualified Doctor. Four years is a lot of time for experiences and opportunities to occur in, so, while I have ideas of where I would like to apply myself, I am still staying open to what the future may bring.

An area of significant interest to me right now though, is women’s health. As a young Minjungbal woman of Yugambeh-Bundjalung Jugun from a rural area, I have struggled to access medical expertise by doctors who are willing to investigate and uncover the causes of my ill health. As a woman, too often our worries are dismissed and too often is the main solution for any ailment to ‘just go on the pill’. Despite this I am privileged as I have the ability and time to pursue other avenues and health professionals to help me. As a doctor I want to provide personalised care that genuinely finds and treats the root cause of illness rather than just band-aid the symptoms. I believe that, regardless of who or where you are, you should be able to access high quality, culturally and physically safe medical care. It is this vision tat makes me so passionate about Indigenous women being able to access such care preceding throughout and subsequent to childbirth for both her and her baby.

Unfortunately Indigenous mothers and their babies continue to experience poorer health outcomes before and after birth, particularly if they live in rural and remote areas. The systemic change required to improve the statistics and personal experiences of our women is not easily come by. Systemic change is the result of many individuals working together and I intend to add my qualifications and voice as a young Minjungbal woman to organisations such as Birthing on Country to be an advocate fro this change. Birthing on Country requires so many people in different capacities; doctors, researchers, advocates, and Indigenous woman themselves, with people working in inter sectional roles. The aim is to facilitate the return of the birthing process to Indigenous communities enabling culturally appropriate care specific of the mother, her mob and community traditions. There is hard evidence that the fostering of traditional birthing alongside medical checks and guidance helps ‘close the gap’ in both mental and physical health statistics, allowing families to connect with and preserve their traditions.

I know that wherever I end up as a health professional it is here that I want to make a change. Here being in the individual lives of those around me, and here being in the building blocks for tomorrow.

With each passing year of study and training my interest in medicine are consolidating. My objective to studying medicine was to add clinical skills to my public health knowledge to one day support communities to improve medical health outcomes practically and sustainably. At this stage in my training, I feel that I am able to visualise this outcome, which is a very rewarding feeling after so many years focused on the academic study of medical science.

I am currently undertaking a surgical elective placement at Coffs Harbour Hospital, where I can integrate my basic surgical knowledge from my previous surgical rotation at Albury Wodonga Health. Here, through the exceptional hands-on teaching in a rural setting I ‘clicked’ with a discipline. Previously I had enjoyed involving myself in all areas of patient care, not prefacing any particular area of interest. However, throughout the surgical teaching term in Albury and Wodonga I felt the vast difference between enjoying a day learning in a medical ward and supporting patients in my capacity as a medical student to the feeling of tangibly accomplishing something together in a small team with specific goals and outcomes that delivered a (mostly) real time result. As such I made the choice to further investigate this new interest by joining the general surgical team in a larger teaching hospital this year.

Experiencing the triage process of patient transport for complex care through to the minor procedures on the skin surgical lists have been interesting to me. I have enjoyed the opportunity to experience the difference of training in a new facility and learning from new senior doctors to expand my depth of knowledge and skills. Over the last few weeks, I have concentrated on basic principles and patient safety as I navigate my way in a new surgical unit. Further exposure to theatres and general surgical operations feels exciting to me, similar to how I felt embarking on the new adventure of starting medical school. I take these indications as positive reinforcement that I am on the correct path in medicine. Knowing that medicine is a commitment to life long learning has always suited my quest for knowledge and reading, however at this stage, the thought of focusing on a surgical discipline that involves practical hands-on tasks is an interest that I would like to explore while I focus on general medicine in the years to come as a junior doctor. So far so good in Coffs Harbour!