Dr Ruth Mitchell
BMBS(GradEntry) ’07
By Kate Holland
As a first-year medical student, Dr Ruth Mitchell was invited to a congress on the prevention of nuclear war. In her fourth year she saw her first craniotomy. Both events changed her life.
Dr Mitchell was born and raised in Peru. The doctor who delivered her was Nathaniel Davies, a wise and kind Welshman with a keen sense of justice and passion for looking after people who had no access to health care. It was he who inspired her to pursue medicine. From the age of six, she was quite certain she was going to be a doctor.
He wasn’t the only example of what it looks like to live a life in service of others. Dr Mitchell says her parents have always been community-minded and selfless.
“Both have advanced degrees in theology. My mother also has a degree in nutrition and my father is a linguist. When I was growing up in Peru, my father was leading a team of Indigenous translators, translating the Bible into the Cusco Quechua language, and my mother fostered cooperatives for Indigenous women to sell their alpaca knitted goods, among myriad other things.”
Dr Mitchell says they encouraged her to be herself and to do the things she was most drawn to – zoology and political science in her undergraduate time at the University of Calgary, and activism and student politics from high school onwards.
Most significantly, they encouraged her to dream big, helping her to believe that it’s possible to make a lasting change if you find the right people to do it with.
Finding Her People
In 2004, during her first year as a medical student at Flinders, Dr Mitchell received an email from foundation Professor Ian Maddocks, as did every other medical student, asking if she would be interested in attending the Congress of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) in Beijing, China.
“I have never replied to an email faster in my life, and before I knew it, I was meeting with the South Australian branch of the Medical Association for the Prevention of War, who very kindly funded myself and another student, Mahyar Amjadi, to attend the congress. This was life-changing – I found my people: doctors and medical students from around the world who agreed that nuclear abolition was a public health issue, people who really did want to change the world and make it a safer place, for everyone.”
Dr Mitchell was a founding member of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). In 2017, while sitting at a café in Florence, she learnt they’d won the Nobel Peace Prize that year – Australia’s first – for their role as the main civil society partner negotiating a treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons at the United Nations.
Following in the footsteps of her advocacy mentor, Professor Maddocks, Dr Mitchell went on to become the first woman Chair of the Board of the IPPNW, a position she still holds today.
Love at First Cerebellum
During her fourth year of study, Dr Mitchell did her first rotation in neurosurgery and promptly fell “head over heels in love with the brain.” “The first time I saw a craniotomy, with the cerebellum on view, I felt tears welling as I took in the beauty in front of me. I was besotted, and I knew what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.”
She currently works at the Sydney Children’s Hospital and Prince of Wales Hospital, both in Randwick in Sydney. Her advocacy works extends deep into the medical profession too. Across her career she has worked tirelessly in pursuit of doctors’ wellbeing and high-quality medical care, through advocacy, education and research.
In 2016, Dr Mitchell was the inaugural Australian Medical Association Doctor in Training of the Year, and in 2019 she received the John Corboy Medal from the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons for her advocacy for diversity and inclusion in surgery.
Juggling Responsibilities
It’s no mean feat to balance campaigning for a nuclearweapon- free world with life as a neurosurgeon.
“Both endeavours bring soaring highs and crushing lows. Finding ways to be committed as a leader and a surgeon simultaneously is also a challenge. I find it to be a dance.
“In my current practice in neurosurgery, I look after both paediatric and adult patients, and I have a special interest in epilepsy surgery. It is particularly rewarding when you undertake a difficult operation, and it makes the patient seizure-free. Giving people their lives back is an unbelievable honour.”
Fondness for Flinders
While grateful for her education, Dr Mitchell is glowing about her former classmates.
“One of the great joys of medical school was my brilliant, hilarious classmates. I’m very grateful to everyone who helped make problem-based learning (PBL) tutorials, clinical skills acquisition and even exam preparation a shared and enriching experience.”
The University was appreciative of her efforts too, both in and out of her medical degree.
“I was awarded the Flinders University Medical School Alumni Prize for outstanding contribution in a field other than medicine by a final year medical student. This was for leading trips of my medical student peers to Baxter Detention Centre near Port Augusta to visit asylum seekers, as part of the Health and Human Rights Group, during my second year of medical school.”
In 2022, Dr Mitchell was awarded a Convocation Medal from Flinders for her outstanding contributions to the global community through humanitarian services and activism as a member of ICAN.
Passing the Baton
The transition from student to teacher is not one Dr Mitchell takes for granted.
“I think of a lot of firsts in my surgical career: the first operation I did – incision and drainage of a scalp abscess as a medical student; the first brain tumour I took out – a meningioma; the first aneurysm I clipped – on the right middle cerebral artery; and I remember with enormous gratitude the surgeons who guided me to do these things.
“Now, I get to be the teacher, guiding my trainees to do their first cases, and together, we get to spend a lifetime improving our practice, becoming safer, more elegant, thoughtful surgeons.”
“I’m proud of the people I’ve mentored, and nothing gives me deeper joy than seeing them soar and achieve things far greater than I have.”
She may have briefly considered being a ballerina or astronaut, but all these years later Dr Mitchell feels she made the right choice in medicine. To anyone else considering it, her advice is plain.
“The main reason to do something is simple: because you like it. Finding something you enjoy and then leaning into that joy is so important. It doesn’t really need to make sense to anyone but you. Choose your path for your reasons, then gather a crew of mentors who can speak into your life and keep you on track.”