Award recipient tackles racism head-on
Dr Khorshid this week presented the 2020 AMA Indigenous Medical Scholarship to Lloyd Diggins, a third-year medical student at the University of Notre Dame Australia.
Mr Diggins, a Wongi Aboriginal man, is already a physiotherapist but decided to retrain as a GP to better serve the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.
Mr Diggins, 29, is a passionate advocate for tackling the casual, systemic, indirect racism that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander patients and healthcare workers routinely encounter.
“Racism in health care is as strong as ever, and non-Aboriginal people can, unfortunately, be blind to it,” Mr Diggins said.
“For that reason, I’m so grateful to the AMA for celebrating Aboriginal people and for valuing the importance of an Aboriginal workforce. Our presence not only provides safety for Aboriginal people, but makes casual racism much more uncomfortable for casual racists.”
Mr Diggins will receive $10,000 a year for the remainder of his degree.
Applications are open for the 2021 Scholarship.
You can hear Mr Diggins’ speech in full here. [need link to audio].
