“You can’t ask that!” Living and working as First Nations clinicians in Queensland
This morning’s panel discussion will explore what it’s like to be an Indigenous clinician in Queensland. Our panel members will talk about growing up, how they got to where they are, what needs to change, why they got into healthcare, and how their colleagues can be more culturally sensitive (and why they need to be).
Our panel includes:
Dr Alicia Veasey
Dr Alicia Veasey is a Torres Strait Islander woman who, prior to medicine, was a paediatric nurse. She is currently in her final year of a Fellowship in Obstetrics and Gynaecology with a subspeciality interest in Paediatric and Adolescent Gynaecology. Dr Veasey has completed a Master of Health Management and Master of Public Health. She is the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander representative on the Statewide Maternity and Neonatal Clinical Network and a member of RANZCOG’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women’s health committee. She has previously been Director for the Australian Indigenous Doctors’ Association, a founding member of Health Workforce Australia’s Future Health Leaders Council, and a delegate at the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples.
Mr Gary Torrens
With roots to Bundjalung Country and Southampton UK, Gary has been nursing since 1994. After gaining registration in 1996, he has worked primarily in nephrology and kidney transplantation in both Australia and the UK. Indigenous kidney health has become a strong passion in which he wants to find solutions and improve outcomes.
Ms Joanne Tesiram
Joeanne (Joe) a descendent of the Wiradjuri people of New South Wales. She was born and raised on Country, but did not know her Culture due to past government and family policy. She began working in the health industry at 15-16 years of age as an orthodontic nurse during school holidays for her local dentist. After finishing her general nursing training in Sydney in 1987, Joe decided to leave nursing and spent a few years working in a variety of non-healthcare roles including logistics, operations, customer service and sales. Joe was then lured back into nursing, bouncing from the Rachel Forster Hospital in Redfern to St. Vincent’s Hospital to work in the cardio-thoracic operating suite. When a cardiothoracic surgeon asked for staff to go to North Queensland to help set up the first cardiothoracic theatre she put up her hand and relocated to Townsville. Here she studied science, got married, had a child, and quit nursing again to work for a pharmaceutical company. After several years in Melbourne and overseas and the discovery of a passion for rheumatology, Joe and her family moved to Brisbane in 2012. She is currently working at the Princess Alexandra Hospital as a Clinical Nurse Consultant in Rheumatology and the Chair of the PAH Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Advocates and Stakeholders Committee. In 2022 Joe will be completing her Improvement Fellowship for CEQ. Her journey continues every day to walk in the footsteps of her ancestors and to practice Yindyamarra (honour, to respect, to be gentle, to be polite, and to do so slowly).
Ms Kirsty Leo
As a first Nation and South Sea Islander nurse, Kirsty has had the privilege to work for the last 20-plus years in the healthcare system, specialising in First Nation health, commencing in 1999 as a Trainee Aboriginal Health Worker in the Northern Territory then moving into nursing in 2008. Kirsty completed a Healthcare Improvement Fellowship at Clinical Excellence Queensland in 2020 which reinvigorated over two decades of healthcare systems thinking to her newly acquired passion to 'foster the conditions for emergence'- (Tyson Yunkaporta). The learnings and immersion into systems thinking from national and international leaders from within and external to health will be invaluable for the next several years. She looks forward to sharing and expanding her opportunities to work across healthcare systems yielding improved outcomes for our First Nations consumers and clinical communities.