Healthy Futures Report - LIME Network

FINDINGSHowever, Indigenous medical graduates alsowarned against tokenistic and unsupportedcommunity involvement. This included notadequately preparing Indigenous communitymembers for the challenges of teaching intertiary institutions and concerns that contactwith communities was not comprehensive andappropriate.… you can’t just throw [communitymembers] in the deep end.… on paper it looks like they do a lot ofcommunity activities, but attendingNAIDOC week once a year is not enough.Indigenous medical graduatesOther issues raised by Indigenous studentsupport workers included frustration over lackof time to ‘get to the community’ due to otherwork pressures and concerns that theimportance of community involvement wasnot adequately valued by the medical schoolas a whole.Personal contact, building trust anddeveloping supportive relationships,partnerships and networks is the mostimportant strategy for attracting Indigenouspeople in to medicine and retaining them.4.3.2 School and university visitsSixty-seven percent of Indigenous studentsupport workers emphasised the importanceof engaging with primary and secondaryschool students regularly and in a number ofdifferent ways, depending on their age. Theseincluded:●●●●Indigenous medical students and doctorsvisiting schools and communities to talkabout medicine;Indigenous medical students and doctorsacting as role models and mentors foryounger children;primary and secondary students visitingmedical schools and universities fororientation days, and summer and healthcamps;arranging different recruitment activitiesand strategies for different age groups;and● regularly attending Croc festivals, Vibe 3on 3s and other local career festivals.Each of our strategies target differentpotential students. The year 8, 10 and 12camps are probably the best for schoolage. Word of mouth for older students.Media ads … [for] career options.Indigenous medical student supportworkerPlanned visits to the medical schools, touringthe school’s facilities and meeting faculty staffwere identified as significantly contributing tothe recruitment of Indigenous people tomedicine and/or other health fields.School contact, building relationships withprospective students, Indigenous specificcareer events and word of mouth.The building of relationships with both theprospective student and with theirfamilies is of paramount importance.Indigenous student support worker23