AMA VICDOC Summer 2024 - Magazine - Page 13
A M AV P O D CAST S ER I ES
Q5 /
WHY IS THIS WORK IMPORTANT?
-
We are given the privilege of being invited
into community spaces to talk about
health topics. This establishes a safe
space for communities to ask questions.
As healthcare professionals, we hear firsthand about some of the beliefs, stigmas
and assumptions. Within the hospital
setting, we may assume that these diverse
communities don’t attend their antenatal
appointments because they don’t place
enough importance on these appointments
but, if you consider it from their perspective,
when back in their home country, pregnant
women would often exist outside of a
hospital setting and not have checkups let
alone blood tests or glucose tolerance tests,
and then deliver their baby at home. I think
we sometimes assume that everyone comes
from the same knowledge and experience,
and this puts everyone at a disadvantage.
Q6 /
IF YOU COULD CHANGE OR IMPROVE ONE
THING ABOUT THE WAY WE DELIVER
HEALTHCARE, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
-
I’d like to see a real focus on improving
the cultural sensitivity and competence
of our healthcare practitioners, and the
system brought more broadly. We need to
consider the perspectives of people who
haven’t experienced a western healthcare
system before, those who have lower levels
of English and those with lower levels of
health literacy. On a day-to-day level, it
might just be asking open questions to
understand an individual’s beliefs, and not
making assumptions. In considering
the greater picture, we need to remember
that everyone we encounter holds
diverse knowledge and experience.
We as practitioners need to be open
to keep learning too.
Q7 /
YOU’VE RECENTLY COMPLETED A SERIES
OF PODCASTS FOR AMA VICTORIA.
TELL US ABOUT THAT!
-
There are six podcasts in the series, each one
is an in-conversation style interview with
a fellow doctor. This year, I'm undertaking
the Williamson Community Leadership
Program through Leadership Victoria,
which has allowed me to reflect on how
I show up in the world.
My objective for these podcast episodes
is to highlight leadership topics relevant to
medicine. I chose six books off my bookshelf
to pull themes from, and then used these
themes as springboards for the interviews.
Each podcast is about 30 minutes long.
I’ve learned that making a good podcast
involves a lot of behind the scenes work!
This has been many months in the making,
and I’m excited that AMA Victoria is
launching the podcast episodes this month.
As a proclaimed introvert, one of the
episodes features a favourite book of mine,
Susan Cain’s Quiet, which discusses qualities
of introversion and conversely extraversion.
Hopefully this episode will be an insightful
conversation for all listeners.
VI CD O C SU M M ER 2024
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