32 / 56
@ElsevierAUS
was really, really inspirational for me
to do that and stay connected, being in
North Queensland, and I’d get to play
football as well which was also important.
Finishing that degree, I moved to
Brisbane, I actually moved to the Gold
Coast first to complete my internship,
then went to Rural Brisbane Hospital.
I knew very early on that I wanted to
be working in community medicine. I
loved getting out of the hospital context,
around health promotion, disease
prevention and particularly trying to
make some in roads around Aboriginal,
Torres Strait Islander health outcomes. So
I completed my hospital bare minimum
and got straight out into general practice.
Just before I finished my fellowship
training I moved back to Mackay and
worked at the Aboriginal medical
centre where I was for the last six years,
working with my own community.
That was really inspirational, working
with your own family and cousins and
relatives and seeing them as patients.
That’s something that can happen
working in rural and remote, you
can’t have that professional divide.
‘It’s the environment,
it’s the people and I
think it’s the journey
on the way to the
patient. It’s not just
about the patient and
the medicine, it’s
everything wrapped
around it.’