Dr Benjamin Armstrong is Tasmanian Aboriginal - a Melukerdee and Pinterrairer, Lia Pootah man. Paving the way for others to follow behind him, Dr Armstrong became one of the first indigenous students to graduate with a Bachelor of Medicine/Bachelor of Surgery from the University of Wollongong and now proudly holds the title of Australia’s first known clinical microbiologist of Aboriginal descent. Originally from a town of less than 200 people, Dr Armstrong describes his journey into pathology.

“I grew up in a tiny little town in rural Tasmania which focused mainly on fishing and farming – there wasn’t a lot of occupational diversity. I was one of just a couple of people who went to university from my primary school class – it just wasn’t something that was done in such a tiny town. It took me a long time to work out that medicine was what I wanted to do. I knew that I wanted to do something in the health field, but it just wasn’t on the radar where I grew up.

“I was extremely lucky that my parents wanted me to do something more and worked really hard to give me opportunities. They sent me to a different school rather than the small local public school and I went to a good high school where it was considered normal to continue learning beyond school. I had to travel two hours each way on a little bus to get there, so it was a big deal for my family, logistically as well as financially.

“At university, I started out studying medical laboratory science and really enjoyed it. I loved the science of the body, particularly the interactions between microbes and the immune system. I followed that pathway for quite a long time, but everything suddenly clicked when I learned that post graduate medicine existed. I decided that was something that I wanted to have a crack at. I somehow got in, progressed and then here we are!

“Growing up, you have the sense that no one ever expects you to do something like this – in fact it was actively warned against. There was this assumption that ‘there’s no way you’ll succeed because of who you are’, and that’s a pretty stock standard story for basically every Aboriginal doctor that I know. Lots of our people are told by their career councillors that they shouldn’t do anything too aspirational.

“Once I reached medical school, I found things a lot easier because I joined the Australian Indigenous Doctors Association (AIDA). I had found a group of people that had the same story as me and there was this real light-bulb revolutionary moment where, just for once, I wasn’t different – everyone had the same stories. I had found a support group that really got me though a lot of problems. They were a huge deal for me. You can imagine what it meant getting my fellowship at the beginning of the year in front of my family as the first Aboriginal microbiologist – you can’t get better than that.

“I think now there seems to be more of a move to identify talented Aboriginal students and push them towards opportunities that are sponsored and facilitated and mentored - that is something that never happened when I was growing up. These opportunities can make a huge difference to young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Now there are finally role models in the professions, too, which was foreign to my childhood –now there are people we can look up to. It is getting better, it’s baby steps but we are making headways.

“During the pandemic, there was a moment where I was invited to sit on a working group where the Commonwealth was consulting Aboriginal people on measures to prevent covid in communities. It was staffed with not just me as the first Aboriginal Microbiologist, but also several Aboriginal GPs and the first Aboriginal infectious diseases physician. So really all the specialties that were at the very coal face of COVID-19 were finally being represented by Aboriginal doctors for the first time. That was amazing and something which couldn’t even have been imagined 10 years ago.”