Catrina Felton-Busch: For a lot of these young people who set
out to do their medicine degree, they're building on the history
of activism from their elders, to have better, better rights
and more opportunities. Because at the end of the day, as a rich
community control services in our community want our young
people to be the doctor that they see. And it's not an easy
road, they've had to undertake six years of medical training,
and then do a couple of years in the hospital. It's the time when
they're also thinking about starting families, the entry
exams to hand the exams to fellow are hard. So we really
wanting to make sure that we do what we can to actually get them
to successfully fellow. The role of our team is to bring in a
raft of services that can support that we are in contact
with them all the time, we have a range of workshops to make
sure that we're keeping in touch with them, because we actually
do need them out in our communities. It's what our
community control health sector is asking for is what our
community is asking for. They want our mob to be providing
that that culturally appropriate health care.
Dr Jacinta Power: My name is Jacinta Power, I am a Juru woman
which is part of the Birri Gubba nation. I am currently a general
practitioner working at the Moreton ATSICHS clinic in
Deception Bay in Brisbane, when I was quite young, I lost a
younger brother that I had, he had cancer. And it really
ignited something where I wanted to be in healthcare. So I just
had a love for science, maths and the way the body worked, and
that order sort of seemed to gel well together. And then I
decided to do medicine.
But in my fifth year of medicine, I became pregnant bit
of a challenge 50 years, your final exams as well, two weeks
out from my exam, I gave birth to him, I had a beautiful little
boy, he's now eight years old, I ended up sitting a deferred
exam, and then it was the Christmas holidays. And then it
was straight back into training, had a lot of family support that
helped me get through that part.
As I went through placements within general practice and
working with some of those medical educators, and you seen
the impact that they had in the communities they worked in,
inspired me to want to do that more generalist type of care. So
I started GP training in 2016, and then I gained my fellowship
at the beginning of 2019. I had a son and then balancing work
life and study and being a mum and a partner and still
contributing within my wider family as well, part-time was
definitely the best option for me.
It was definitely challenging. studying and working, even just
at the end of the day once I would put my son to bed, it's
like how do you have the energy to study. I failed the KFP the
first time but then I had to find all that motivation again,
and the strength and the willpower to get through
studying for it a second time. I had a couple of friends that I
was studying with, I was able to just gain motivation from them
because they were also going through that same situation. As
soon as you find out you passed, it's just like this amazing
feeling, but at the same time, you have that feeling like did I
really pass it? Am I really a GP now?
Coming from a background where it's no doctors in the family,
my dad had only been to year eight, then I'm at university
with people who are like third or fourth generation doctors in
their family. Right from the beginning, you feel like you're
not as good as them or you feel like less qualified to be there.
That imposter syndrome, I feel like is probably more now than
what it was during my training and I think that's something
that will always be there to a certain extent. Just put on that
confidence face that all these other doctors have and the other
med students like it's just the fact that they're confident that
all you got to do is fake it like that confidence.
General Practice will always be something that I'm working in
the community, my family, my elders and my ancestors. The
fact that they've instilled so much belief in me and given me
so much coming from so little. I feel you know, I owe it to the
community that I grew up in, if I can help change that cycle of
poor health and those health gaps, that's important to me,
because they're the reason why I'm here today.
Dr Jeanette Wimbus: My name is Jeanette Wimbus, I'm a proud
Gubbi Gubbi Torres Strait Islander and Australian South
Sea Islander woman, live here with my husband, who's an Army
veteran and my twin boys. I'm currently working as a GP.
I always want to be a doctor since I was a little girl. I
told my parents I wanted to go to Africa and help the children
in Africa, I had a lot of family members died quite young, I
realized that Africa was much closer to home and that I really
wanted to help was my people. That or be a boxer, but my dad
wouldn't let me so I chose doctor. No one in my family is
ever a doctor at all, not in my family, not in my extended
family. I repeated first year of medical school, I had the
equivalent of Days of Our Lives happened in my life. I
distinctly remember I said to another med student, I have to
go home, I have a funeral. And this medical students said to
me, Oh, my goodness, Jeanette, like you have like somebody die
in your family, like every year. And I said, oh why? like, don't
you? and they said, I don't think I've even had anybody die
in my life of my family yet, not even my grandparents. I do
remember actually asking the Dean, if he was sure that I
should be graduating, I guess I never really expected that I'd
actually make it. I finished off medical school. And then I
decided to do GP training.
Most of the great doctors that I know have failed this exam at
least once or twice. So I did the AKT twice the KFP three
times, there's nothing like getting that score and that that
email that just really hits your heart and makes you feel less
than. At the end of the day, whether you fail that exam or
not, you're still a doctor, no one can take that away from you
is still a damn doctor and that's the biggest achievement
that there is, if you do fail, you just have to get back up,
get back on the horse and do it again.
Finding out that I was pregnant was a big thing for me and my
husband, finding out it was twins was a
shock. I was really sick from about six weeks through to the
day before my KFP exam. Sick. Finding out I passed that KFP
finally, was
I still had the third OSCE to come. I had a lot of
complications in my pregnancy with my own health with the
twins. I gave birth to my twins at 32 weeks. So they were
premature. I think it was about a week later, I got my final
exam results. I'd actually kind of forgotten about to check them
but I've got them. And I checked them and I had to keep double
checking them and making sure that that was the right letter
for what it meant. And I'd passed
It's, it's done. Thank you, Jesus that I don't have to study
and do this stuff anymore. For First Nation people this is so
much more of an achievement. We have so much going on in our
lives. That doesn't escape us just because we decide to study
medicine and that doesn't escape us because we become a doctor.
Now that I Fellow do I feel like wow, you know what? I'm a GP and
I'm just at that level of respect in that.
you're not an imposter. You're just helping people, being you.