Category: Member Story

AIDA spoke with Luke Walker, one of our Indigenous medical student members who is now in his final year of studying medicine. Luke is a Wiradjuri man from a small town called Narromine located about 30 minutes west of Dubbo, in Central West NSW. In Year 12 he was awarded Narromine’s Young Citizen of the … Continued

AIDA spoke to Dr Claudia Paul who finished her studies last year to become a medical doctor. We asked her how it felt to pass her final exams after five years of studies. “It has taken a little while for it to sink in, that I have now finished medical school (finally) and am working … Continued

AIDA recently spoke to Australia’s first Indigenous Radiation Oncology trainee and AIDA Indigenous Medical Doctor Member, Dr Kelly Needham – a mother of 12-year old twins who grew up in a blue collar Australian family in south western Sydney, who now lives on the Central Coast. “My Indigenous heritage comes from my father’s side of … Continued

AIDA spoke with Dr Declan Scott, a Wirlomin Noongar man from the ancestral country on the south coast of WA roughly between Bremer Bay and Esperance. Declan grew up in Coolbellup in Perth and is now an Intern at the Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital in Western Australia. He graduated with a Bachelor of Medicine and … Continued

Miss Kelly Langford has been an Indigenous Medical Student Member with AIDA since her first year of enrolment in the Doctor of Medicine at The University of Western Australia (UWA) in 2015. She is a proud Darraba woman from the Badjala Nation on Fraser Island. We asked what inspired Kelly to study medicine. “When I … Continued

AIDA spoke with Dr Kristopher Rallah-Baker about his career, art, culture and music, and his connection to AIDA. Kristopher was born in Canberra, ACT, where his dad worked with National Parks and Wildlife Service and his mum worked in the Aboriginal Development Commission. Although he doesn’t remember it, Kristopher says Uncle Neville Bonner held him … Continued

AIDA spoke with Australia’s first Indigenous Orthopaedic Registrar, Anthony Murray. He was accepted by the Australian Orthopaedic Association (AOA) and Royal Australian College of Surgeons (RACS) as a Surgical Education and Training (SET) trainee in Orthopaedics, and will commence in 2017. Anthony has worked as an unaccredited trainee in Orthopaedics since 2015 at the Central Coast, NSW. … Continued

AIDA met with Rural Medicine Australia 2016 Bursary recipient Miss Danielle Dries to find out what inspired her to study medicine. “I think that my dad might have influenced me a bit. When I was doing physiotherapy, he sent me an email telling me that medical school had started in Canberra and that he thought … Continued

Life milestones such as graduating from medical school and becoming a father for the first time are special moments – cherished and remembered forever. But if your first born arrived in the middle of your university medical studies and your dad, a role model and hero to you, would never see you graduate, it’s fair … Continued

AIDA member and Aboriginal medical student, Ms Anne-Maree Nielsen received the MDA National and Rural Doctors Association of Australia (RDDA) Rural Health Bursary for 2015. She chose Thursday Island as the location for her clinical placement, firstly because she wanted to learn more about Torres Strait Islander culture, and secondly to further consolidate her medical … Continued