Is there any better learning ground for a young doctor than a pandemic?
The COVID-19 experience has inspired Dr Ben Griffiths, of Bar Beach, to expand his horizons.
"Especially in the last year throughout the COVID pandemic, I've realised how important it is to have effective health leadership," Dr Griffiths, 25, said.
The fourth-year doctor has recognised the importance of "being able to interpret evidence and convey that to the public to help prevent disease".
"We've seen a number of debacles throughout the last year, especially Donald Trump with the hydroxychloroquine saga. It really emphasised to me that, as a doctor, I have a role as a clinician but also as a researcher and community leader.
"We have a responsibility to know how to interpret evidence and convey it to the public."
It's this kind of ambition that has landed Dr Griffiths a $120,000 scholarship from the Westpac Scholars Trust, which he'll use to study a Master of Public Health degree through the University of Sydney.
He'll use the degree to expand his knowledge of "preventive healthcare", which he believed "all doctors need to be focused on and adept at to reduce the burden on our healthcare system".
"I'm hoping by the end of it, I'll be a better doctor and leader and have a greater positive impact on my community."
Preventive Health
When we first heard that Dr Griffiths had a scholarship to study preventive health, things like exercise, eating more veggies and yoga came to mind.
So we asked him whether he had any thoughts on different forms of medicine. Like for example, eastern medicine as opposed to western medicine.
"No we're not talking about alternative medicine," he said, as his clinician's voice became a tad more clinical.
No acupuncture or aromatherapy, then?
"The sort of thing I'm talking about is like HPV immunisation and how it's decreasing cervical cancer and folate supplementation reducing neural tube defects," he said.
"It's not just health interventions like increasing exercise and improving diet to reduce cardiovascular and respiratory mortality and morbidity."
He said preventive health went beyond the GP-to-patient level.
"It's also at the policy level," he said.
He said the pandemic made him realise "there's so much more we can do as doctors beyond the patient in front of us".
"There's so much opportunity for us to influence health on a larger scale," he said.
Despite studying preventive health, his current career path is towards general surgery.
So we asked him what made him want to do surgery. Doesn't it make him queasy? All that blood and guts?
"It's kind of something you get graded exposure to throughout medical school. The first time seeing a cadaver at the anatomy level or seeing an operation, you do get used to seeing the human body in a different way," he said.
"I want to do surgery because the human body is fascinating. And I find anatomy interesting. Also with a lot of surgery, you provide a quick and relatively certain cure.
"If someone comes in with appendicitis, you take the appendix out and it's done. If someone has a hernia and they can't get their daily activities done because of the pain, you can do a repair and find they get relief."
