AMAV VICDOC Winter 2024 - Magazine - Page 23
Year on year, more reasons emerge for Aboriginal
people to embrace and celebrate their identity.
We’re seeing a real hunger for connection,
community, and belonging. That’s an incredibly
powerful source of strength, from which
we’re developing optimistic narratives of
health and wellbeing.
—
ONE SIMPLE WAY MEDICAL PRACTITIONERS CAN
are in Eurocentric, hierarchical,
INCREASE THEIR CULTURAL COMPETENCY IS BY
competitive, and male-dominated
BUILDING MUTUALLY BENEFICIAL RELATIONSHIPS. fellowships where other people – women,
—
Relationships are everything. Every major
hospital in Victoria has an Aboriginal
health team of local community members
whose presence makes hospitals more
culturally safe, and accessible for Aboriginal
people. If you're working in a hospital
setting, I encourage you to introduce
yourself to your Aboriginal Health Liaison
Officers. Get to know them. Turn up
when they hold their NAIDOC events.
There are also opportunities to undertake
professional development in cultural safety
through organisations like the Australian
Indigenous Doctors’ Association.
AT VACCHO, WE’VE BEEN ADVOCATING
FOR THE DECOLONISATION OF MEDICINE.
—
The medical profession has its own
unique culture, with innate ways of
being, knowing and doing. Its origins
Indigenous people, and people of colour
– have had to fight to create space for
themselves. We’re just getting started in
decolonising the structures that exclude
Aboriginal people. Within the ACCO
sector, we’ve flipped the script. A medical
professional’s legitimacy, authority and
trustworthiness depend on their ability to
detach from medicine’s culture and adjust
to Aboriginal ways of being, knowing,
and doing. Are they good at listening?
Do they practice humility and embrace
team members' strengths? Are they
advocates against racism and structural
inequity? These are not soft skills – in fact,
decolonising medicine requires us to think
of them as basic qualifiers. After all, the
role of a doctor is one of service, and highquality medicine in any setting cannot be
practiced without trust.
VI CD O C WI NTER 2024
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