My name is Steven Cable and I am a proud Noongar Man with connection to Narrogin in Western Australia. Growing up I always envisioned myself working in healthcare to connect to local communities and be able to make a difference to as many lives as possible. I started my healthcare journey as a Physiotherapist working at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in New South Wales for four years and was able to meet some amazing people. After this I decided to begin the process of starting a career in Medicine. I am currently in my second year studying at the University of Sydney and looking forward to working in regional and rural settings when I am qualified.

Through my experiences at University Placements as a Physiotherapist in more regional and rural settings (Broome, Dubbo and Orange) I have witnessed the struggles and frustrations felt by many about the lack of specialised services available and the complicated process of needing to travel to an area with greater medical service exposure.

My goal through my current medical program is to be able to gain the required knowledge and training to become a Qualified Physician in a specialty which is going to eventually benefit small Indigenous communities the most. I am still currently weighing up between a few specialties, including Ophthalmology, but am still quite early in my training and will be able to make a more distinct choice in the coming years. Once gaining a more specialised position I am aiming to help increase exposure in rural and remote communities. One of the main ways I can do this is by encouraging as many fellow health professionals as possible to work in these settings so we can help address at least part of the access to healthcare struggles a lot of Indigenous communities are facing.

During the first semester of the year I was pleased to begin with an eight week block of clinical placements split between my clinical school at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and a combination of General Practitioner and other Health Professionals. I gained a lot of valuable experience talking to patients in various health settings as well as continuing to build on my theoretical knowledge in this time with many online lectures. With the Other Health Professional placements I spent time at various different areas including Pharmacy, Optometry, Ophthalmology, Rehab and Podiatry. These placements were invaluable and allowed me to get a better sense of the health care available in the community. The main areas studied were the respiratory, cardiovascular and endocrine systems and we completed a theoretical and practical exam at the end of this block.

The second eight week block of semester focused on ‘back to basics’ where we concentrated on areas including paediatric medicine, critical care, drug and alcohol as well as global health. The start of this block was a week of Indigenous Health learning and it was inspiring to have local Elders come and talk to the cohort about their experience in the healthcare setting and what future medical practitioners can do to better support both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in the future. This block had a lot more focus on group work and assignments compared to clinical immersion which was completely different to block one but also very rewarding to learn more about these areas. Each week had a different clinical focus which made it quite a fast paced block which seemed to be over very quickly.

Having made it to the half way point of the year I have been pleased with my efforts so far in semester 1, having met the expected standard for all assessments and feel like I have gained a lot of knowledge to take forward into the second half of the year. Semester 2 looks very clinically focused with an eight week block learning about oncology and haematology before having a theory exam and launching into the final eight week block of the year. This final block looks similar to the first block with a combination of clinical placements in different clinical areas. I’m extremely looking forward to continuing to build my knowledge and get exposure to different areas of medicine so I can continue to think ahead and narrow down my future focus and see where I will be able to make the best impact in the community.