For many Aboriginal people, a visit to the doctor is never just about the appointment.
It can be the difference between feeling understood or feeling invisible. It can mean being able to explain your health concerns without having to explain your culture. It can mean seeing someone who understands community, family obligations and the realities of life in the Territory.
That is why the NT Medical Career Expo, hosted by Flinders University's NT Regional Training Hub at Royal Darwin Hospital earlier this month was about much more than showcasing career opportunities. It was about opening doors and reminding young people that medicine is a pathway they can walk too.
The annual event brought together medical students, prevocational doctors and healthcare organisations from across the country, with representatives from 14 of Australia's 15 national medical specialty colleges making the trip to Darwin. Around 160 people attended to learn more about the opportunities available within the Territory's healthcare system.
For Aaron Gordon, a third year Doctor of Medicine student on placement at Royal Darwin Hospital, the expo was both exciting and confronting.
"It was incredible to see the opportunities laid out before me," he said.
"It is both intimidating to think that these opportunities exist for a person like me and inspiring to see that I have come this far."
Those words speak to an experience many Aboriginal people know well. For generations, professions such as medicine have felt distant, something that belonged to other people and other families.
Aaron understands that feeling.
"Growing up, I didn't know any Aboriginal doctors," he said.
"For many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people, medicine can feel like a career that belongs to someone else."
That absence of representation matters.
The Northern Territory has the highest proportion of Aboriginal people in the country, yet there are still too few Aboriginal doctors working across our hospitals and clinics. While significant work has been done to increase Indigenous participation in health professions, the need remains urgent.
Because Aboriginal doctors bring something that cannot be taught in a lecture theatre.
"We bring our own lived experiences, cultural understanding and connection to community," Aaron said.
"There are some things that just can't be learnt but require past experience to bring it into medicine."
For Aaron, those lessons became clear once he began working with patients.
"I didn't realise just how valuable these skills were until I started interacting with some real-life patients. It's extremely evident now."
The expo itself offered hands on experiences including suturing, ultrasound and emergency response simulations, giving students a chance to imagine themselves in different specialties and ask questions of people already doing the work.
For Aaron, it was the conversations around Emergency Medicine and Rural Generalist pathways that stayed with him.
"The ability to combine advanced emergency or critical care skills with community-based practice in regional and remote areas is a model of medicine that strongly aligns with the type of doctor I hope to become," he said.
But getting to this point has not been easy.
"One challenge can be simply seeing medicine as an achievable pathway," he said.
"It can honestly feel like a lonely endeavour at times where you can be surrounded by people and feel completely isolated at the same time."
Like many Aboriginal students, he credits family, mentors and Indigenous support networks with helping him stay the course.
"I have to remind myself that I am supported and that I belong here."
His message to young mob who might be dreaming of a career in medicine is simple and deeply personal.
"No one from my past would have imagined me becoming a doctor," he said.
"Even if you've messed up in high school or taken a different path through life, there is still an opportunity to achieve it if you're passionate and driven."
The future of Aboriginal health will not be transformed by policies alone. It will change when more of our people are sitting in lecture theatres, walking hospital corridors and leading the conversations about what healthcare should look like for our communities.
Every Aboriginal doctor creates possibility. They show our young people what can be achieved and help build a health system where our communities feel safe, respected and understood.
Somewhere in the Territory right now, there is a young black kid who has never met an Aboriginal doctor. We need to change that.
We need more young mob putting their hands up for medicine, more universities and health services backing them to succeed and more Aboriginal faces in white coats.
Because when our people are caring for our people, everybody is healthier.
