PROJECT SPOTLIGHT

Kieran Shipp

Kieran Shipp and James Burt’s Action Project, in collaboration with Thurru Indigenous Health Unit.

Initially Kieran and James were quite reluctant to add another task to their already very busy 4th year Medicine schedule. After some encouragement by Maryanne, the boys decided they wanted to make sure that their project was meaningful and had impact in an area relevant to their passion: Indigenous health and the next wave of Indigenous medical students. Their project has evolved over time with new doors opening, through collaboration with the Indigenous Health Unit at UON known as Thurru. The original idea was to build upon the podcast that they did for the Ma & Morley digital zine, where they spoke about their journeys into medicine. That idea has now grown to involve a digital promotional tool for potential Indigenous medical students. The promotional tool will include interactive pathways relevant to indigenous people from different backgrounds, pathways and journeys. They understand that not everyone has taken the same road and they want to highlight this with real life examples. This will be done through personal stories, in both video and audio formats. Users will have the chance to click on someone’s story who most closely resembles them, and will be able to follow their journey through medicine. The hope is that once the many different journeys are highlighted, more Indigenous people will be inspired to pursue a career in health.