Dr Alicia Veasey, a proud Torres Strait Islander woman, is an Obstetrician and Gynaecologist with a subspeciality fellowship in Paediatric and Adolescent Gynaecology. She is Co-Chair of the Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Clinical Network at Queensland Health, where she provides leadership on systemic cultural safety and strengths-based reforms for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the health system.
In 2023, Dr Veasey was awarded a Fellowship with the prestigious Atlantic Fellows for Social Equity, where she is completing a Master of Social Change Leadership, exploring approaches to embed Indigenous self- determination and sovereignty within health systems.
Prior to medicine, Dr Veasey was a Paediatric Registered Nurse. She served on the Australian Indigenous Doctors’ Association Board of Directors, was a founding member of Health Workforce Australia’s Future Health Leaders Council and was a delegate with the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples.
She currently resides on beautiful Bundjalung Country with her husband and three jarjum.
Do you have a favourite quote, motto or piece of advice to give to new graduates?
“For graduating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students – ground yourself in Country. You need to know where you have come from to know where you are moving to. Use your education to confront settler-colonial institutions and systems, including those we have internalised, as scary as that may be.
“Former University of Waikato Professor of Indigenous Education Linda Tuhiwai Smith said, ‘In reflecting on the work of Indigenous workers, there is a need for all of us to appreciate that what may seem a utopian vision is worth striving for and maybe won through a series of small and incremental gains rather than singular and spectacular actions.’”
