Flinders University NT: 21 students graduate with Doctor of Medicine as NT Health set to reap benefits
A nurse who wanted a career change and a precocious young CDU undergrad from Darwin are among 21 who have received their Doctor of Medicine from Flinders University, providing a timely boost to our health workforce.
Tertiary
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A nurse out of Adelaide who wanted a career change and a precocious young CDU graduate from Darwin are among 21 who received their Doctor of Medicine from Flinders University at the Darwin Convention Centre this week, providing a timely boost to the NT health workforce.
The 11th cohort of the university’s locally run four-year Doctor of Medicine course, which offers applicants free study provided they work in the Territory for two years after their graduation, thanks to commonwealth and Territory government funding, received their degrees on Tuesday.
Graduate Alexei Joukovski, originally from Adelaide, spent eight years working as a nurse before deciding to take the plunge and pursue a career in medicine.
“I moved around to pretty much every Aboriginal community in Australia and got exposed to what doctors do and I really wanted to be a part of that,” Mr Joukovski.
The 32-year-old said he would commence as an intern at the Royal Darwin Hospital upon graduation and hoped to train as a general practitioner in future, while also expressing a desire to pick up skills and management and administration.
Mr Joukovski said medical work was especially gratifying in the Territory because of the small population size.
“People recognise you, patients know your name – it’s great being a little family,” he said.
“I don’t think I could work in a bigger place where it’s just like a machine.”
Local lad George Kypreos, 23, enrolled in the Doctor of Medicine course after completing a Bachelor of Clinical Science at Charles Darwin University.
He said his late grandmother helped steer him on the path to a career in medicine.
Amid a breast cancer battle complicated by a series of heart attacks, Mr Kypreos said to the ailing woman, “Why does it feel like you keep coming back here,” to which she responded, “If you think you can do a better job why don’t you have a stab yourself?”
So he did.
“We’ve all heard the saying, when in pain, get on a plane, so I thought let’s change that,” Mr Kypreos said.
Like his confrère, he is also set to commence as an intern at the RDH after graduation.
“Me and my wife were both born here, our families are here, so we’re planning to stick it out long-term,” he said.
Flinders University is especially proud of its program, which it says provides tangible benefits to the Territory’s at-times fragile health system.
According to the university, the latest cohort takes the total number of graduates to 229, and more than 60 per cent of them stay on past their mandated two-year service.
About 50 per cent of general practice registrar trainees currently registered in the NT are graduates of Flinders’ Doctor of Medicine program, the only Australian Medical Council-accredited medical program offered entirely in the NT.
Tuesday’s graduation ceremony also saw a handful of the university’s Bachelor of Paramedicine students graduate, a year after Flinders’ inaugural cohort got their degrees, the program having only been established in 2020.
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