Throughout my past two years of university, I have participated in tutoring Indigenous youth through the Graham Polly Farmer Foundation.    This has kept me connected to helping my community and has taught me a lot about myself.   When I first left for university I had ambitions to pursue a career in physiotherapy and return to Broome to assist in sporting programs for Indigenous youth.

Entering my second year  of university I became aware of Occupational Therapy (OT) and the extremely low number of Indigenous people in this field of healthcare.    The various pathways of OT aligned with my  personal goals of staying involved in the community and creating a comfortable environment to receive healthcare.   It was the beginning of 2022 when I started this course and so far, I have just become more determined to finishing the degree and begin helping Indigenous people around Australia.

Finishing my degree will be a great personal achievement but it will also provide me with the opportunity to work in rural and remote communities as these are where the barriers of healthcare are most prominent.   My goal in my career is to give back and create the comfortable environment that myself, my mum, my grandmother and her mother never experienced.

I want to dedicate myself to helping Close this Gap between Indigenous people and healthcare and I believe that with my ambitious nature I will make great changes in my time.

The first semester of this year at Curtin University in Perth was enjoyable, busy and content packed. One of my units in particularly began a month earlier than the usual university semester start. This was because it included placement.

The unit aimed to explore professional occupational therapy experiences in real-life environments. As such, I attended a placement at the Osborne Park Hospital completing a week of placement within a multidisciplinary allied health team. The exposure to the different roles, approaches, responsibilities and collaborative care encouraged me to continue pursuing occupational therapy. Although sharing similar roles, the multidisciplinary team all maintained professionalism and care within their scope of practice. This reflective approach highlighted the importance of recognising your scope of practice, capabilities and professional responsibilities.

This unit continued throughout the semester with a weekly class, consisting of teaching professionalism, communication skills and collaborative discussions about care. These discussions were very beneficial and assisted me greatly when completing my practical initial interview assessment during the exam period.

Another unit I completed this past semester was clinical pathophysiology, which consisted of in depth understanding and knowledge of health conditions. Throughout the semester I compiled 10 different health condition reports, detailing aetiology, pathophysiology and more details about well-known conditions, like diabetes. This exposure assisted me in other units as I understood the health conditions from a healthcare perspective, allowing me to apply the knowledge into other units.

The third unit I undertook this semester was Foundations of Environment, Health and Disability. This unit explored intersectionality’s that people with a disability face and further what life within a Western country is like for this community. Deep diving into theories of intersectionality, racism, segregation and how systems and policies reinforce these theories. Being an Aboriginal woman motivated to stop the repetition of colonisation, I really enjoyed exploring these theories, their effects on communities and ultimately the effects on quality of life.

Having to navigate my identity and position in a Western and Aboriginal world has been challenging. Having this knowledge and understanding of past and present intersectionality’s that influence my quality of life, directly provides me with great insights for future practice. As I endeavour to work within Indigenous communities across Australia, the acknowledgement and understanding of intersectionality’s is crucial. Ultimately, this semester’s units displayed a range of different considerations when working in healthcare settings. The knowledge I learned within one unit was able to directly transfer into my other units which assisted my consolidation of learning and ability to apply knowledge. To conclude this semester, I passed all units and exams.

Although my results are not my best, I believe now that I have finished part-time work and can completely focus on studies they will hopefully increase. Going into semester two I have enrolled in four units and look forward to building my knowledge.