When did you first know you wanted to be a doctor?
When I was younger, I actually wanted to be a vet. But when my mum told me I couldn’t be a vet only for cats, I just decided, “Well, I guess I’ll be a doctor instead.” Some artwork I did when I was little (shared on this page) highlights what I thought being a doctor meant, which included “giving people medicine and keeping people alive.”
While this is true, as I grew older, I learnt that medicine involves a bit more than just those two things, and it only made me want to become a doctor more. I am incredibly excited to start working next year, and I hope I can display all the qualities 10-year-old Eva thought would be important.
Why did you join the MSCWA?
As a proud Western Australian who is often quoted saying, “West is Best,” I saw MSCWA as a good opportunity to advocate for the interests of Western Australian students. MSCWA is a fairly new and unknown council compared to our Eastern states’ counterparts, so I wanted to connect the council with other states and key stakeholders here in WA to increase our advocacy power, especially in a time of need with cost-of-living pressures and medical students’ exclusion from the Commonwealth Paid Practicum scheme.
Our goal this year was to restructure and build the Council up to be in a better position to advocate, as well as focus on WA-specific measures to reduce the financial burden on medical students. I am very grateful to the AMA (WA) for all their help this year in advocating on our behalf, as well as introducing free first-aid training for medical students to reduce some of the financial burden of mandatory costs. I look forward to seeing what the new Council achieves next year, when we expand from a two-person committee to five!
Why did you join the AMA (WA)?
I joined the AMA because I think there is always power in a collective, and we must work together to get the best outcome for all. As I step into the workplace next year, seeing all the work the AMA does behind the scenes to secure bargaining agreements and settling disputes, as well as providing financial advice and payslip assistance, I feel comforted knowing I will have extra support as I navigate this exciting transition time.
Studying in Port Hedland.
Do you have a specialty in mind?
While I haven’t completely made up my mind, I think my future specialty needs to be one where every day is different, and I get to do a little bit of everything. As someone who has had a wide variety of interests, I have always related a bit to this quote and imagine my career will be similar: “A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.”
Specialties such as ED physician, GP, or Rural Generalist are quite high on my list, and being able to do rural work is very important to me. I had the privilege of studying in Port Hedland for a whole year, and I can’t wait to get back out to the red dirt!
What’s the first issue you’d tackle if you were WA Minister for Health?
This might sound very Gen Z of me, but it would be digitising our health records. I completed my first year of placement in Port Hedland which had all digital records, and I was shocked upon my return to placement in Perth to see paper records were still being used.
While not a very exciting thing to fix in the public eye, the administrative burden that is reduced by an online management system is huge. Saving medical professionals time on admin means they can spend more time with patients, creating management plans with colleagues and other medical professionals, and teaching the next generation of doctors.
