My name is Madison Ludwig. I am a proud Gurindji and Kungarakan woman from Darwin, Northern Territory. I have spent most of my life living in Darwin, but did relocate to Perth to study my undergraduate degree in Nursing. Since high school, I knew that I wanted to one day work in healthcare and after 4 years of nursing, I decided to make the move across and study medicine, and am now in my final year.

Outside of university, I spend a lot of time volunteering for my family football club, St Marys in the NTFL, where I am the head sports trainer. I also play football and touch rugby and spend as much of my time camping and adventuring the top end as possible.

I am committed to continuing work in the Northern Territory after I graduate, especially working with Indigenous people in rural and remote areas. In my previous career as a nurse, I worked mainly in the renal/dialysis space, both in Darwin as well as across the Top End. During medical school, I was taken coursework units and applied for placement opportunities in areas which have continued to aid my knowledge and understanding of the gaps in Indigenous healthcare. As a doctor, there are many career options that appeal to me, such as working in primary health care, women’s health or possibly renal medicine.

All of these areas of medicine represent areas in which Indigenous people are over represented or suffer worse outcomes. I think being an Indigenous health care professional gives me a unique opportunity to better the health outcomes of my people, and is something that I am very passionate about.

Looking back on Semester 1 of this year, I am happy to say that I moved through the semester well. I passed our final two exams of our course and achieved above average marks for them both. I remained involved in my extra curricular activities, especially my role as a sports trainer for St Marys Football Club.

In addition to this, I also completed rotations in Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Renal Medicine and Emergency Medicine. I completed all of these rotations at Royal Darwin Hospital and had a great time on all three placements.

A highlight of this semester was helping to deliver three babies via C-Section on my birthday! I was also very excited to complete my renal rotation, as this is where I used to work as a renal nurse.

Next semester, I am looking forward to completing my Urology placement at RDH, followed by three rotations in Alice Springs; Alcohol & Other Drugs, Paediatrics and Orthopaedic Surgery. I am very much looking forward to the change on scenery in Alice Springs and all of the adventures that I can have down there!