Inspired by his Nanna, who worked as a nurse, studying medicine was a childhood dream of Isaiah\u2019s.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always wanted to be a doctor from a young age. I went to the hospital with my Nanna a lot as a child as she was a nurse. I would meet all the doctors, and they were the nicest people around and always had time for everyone,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always remembered a lot of people saying they were the smartest and hardest-working people, and I felt like I really wanted someone to look at me in that way. I always wanted to be the kid that helped when someone was hurt, and put the band aid on. This stayed with me my whole life.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to the Australian Indigenous Doctors\u2019 Association<\/a> there are 97,168 doctors in Australia, 204, or 0.21 percent, of whom are Indigenous. To reach parity of 3 percent of practicing clinicians, Australia needs 2,711 Indigenous doctors. Indigenous health, is one of the key areas in the Federal Government\u2019s Closing the Gap<\/a> campaign.<\/p>\n As Isaiah travelled through the education system as an Indigenous student, however, he was told that his dreams of studying medicine were ill-advised, and he should be realistic and focus on getting a trade instead.<\/p>\n \u201cIn Year 10 of high school in Darwin, we talked to teachers about what we wanted to do as a job and, due to being Aboriginal, I was put in a \u2018special group\u2019. When I said I wanted to be a doctor, I was told it would be too hard and I would never make it there, and I was setting myself up to fail and I should look for a tradie job I liked,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \u201cSo I kind of gave up and only finished school due to my Clontarf program pushing me to come, and only being allowed to play schoolboys\u2019 rugby if I was at school. In Year 12, I barely scraped by with being in the bottom 10 per cent of ATAR scores in the Northern Territory and South Australia.\u201d<\/p>\n One of the more obvious problems with the school\u2019s advice, was that Isaiah was not interested in becoming a tradesperson, and ended up hating every trade and manual job he tried. After leaving school, he worked as a pool cleaner, a general trades\u2019 assistant on wharfs, a carpenter and in the mines. While he thoroughly disliked the work, he had the great good fortune of having grandparents who counselled him to return to study, so he could spend his life doing something he loved, and a mother and a stepfather\u00a0who believed in him.<\/p>\n His family had given him sage advice, and Isaiah\u2019s thoughts turned once again to working in a health-related field, but his ATAR meant he was not eligible for the majority of Health Sciences courses. What he was eligible for was Curtin\u2019s Enabling Course<\/a>, which he enrolled in under the guidance of Course Co-ordinator Sheldon Smith<\/a>. It was a serendipitous decision that ultimately put him on the path to achieving his childhood dream: studying medicine.<\/p>\n \u201cThe enabling program allows you to rebuild your ATAR and have some Curtin classes under your belt. I ended up with a 95 percent average across eight units, and was told about the new medicine course,\u201d Isaiah says.<\/p>\n \u201cI said \u2018it has to be fate\u2019, so I applied. I needed another semester in Health Sciences, and was accepted into med school this semester and, honestly, I\u2019m still waiting for the day I wake up to find it was a dream, but I know I worked hard to get here and I\u2019m going to work even harder to stay here.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite achieving a 95 percent average in his Enabling Course units, Isaiah\u2019s first year at Curtin was challenging. He didn\u2019t have a laptop or a phone to complete his coursework, so used public facilities to complete his assignments until he could afford to buy a computer.<\/p>\n \u201cI was the only student I knew who didn\u2019t have a laptop or a decent phone to do school work on for the first year of my uni course, and I worked hard with my part-time job to save and afford each, but, in the meantime, I would stay late at school or public libraries to use their computers to finish assignments. I was only allowed on the computers for an hour at a time,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Isaiah credits the support of his girlfriend, Pauline, and various people at Curtin with helping him get through his first difficult year of study, which is in stark contrast to his earlier years at school when he was told that medicine was so far out of his reach that he shouldn\u2019t even try to achieve a place at university.<\/p>\n \u201cI have had so much support over my uni career and, honestly, it is such a good feeling knowing how much people care and want you to succeed compared to my high school,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \u201cSheldon Smith, Unit Coordinator for the Enabling Program, always had his door open, was always trying to make the program work for everyone, told everyone about scholarship opportunities, was there as a person, rather than someone high up, who you felt you could actually talk to, and supported everyone and helped everyone if you were willing to put in the effort.<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/isaiah-attkins-4-1.jpg\")
Shrinking dreams<\/h2>\n
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Serendipity, support and alternative pathways<\/h2>\n
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