<\/p>\n
\u201cLook for challenges, tell yourself you can do it and give it a red-hot go.\u201d This is the attitude that saw WA\u2019s Deputy Chief Health Officer Dr Clare Huppatz PSM (BMBS \u201998) achieve her goal of getting into medicine at Flinders and what underpins her continual success.<\/strong><\/p>\n Dr Huppatz says she was never the smartest in her class at school, but her parents instilled in her a very strong work ethic and sense of integrity. She was working so hard during Year 11 that teachers suggested she \u2018have a break\u2019 and participate in community service.<\/p>\n Anything is Possible<\/strong><\/p>\n Her experiences delivering supplies for St Vincent De Paul and assisting a woman who cared beautifully for her husband who lived in a persistent vegetative state were eye-opening and influential.<\/p>\n But it was a conversation with a school academic counsellor that led her to fixate on medicine as a career path. When he said it was possible, she became thoroughly determined.<\/p>\n \u201cI remember going back and telling my parents who probably worried about the expectations and pressure. The poor things then watched me work like mad and not get there. There was no medical school in Canberra at the time, so I applied to more than 10 universities, getting into none. I wasn\u2019t particularly put off though. I did first year Science at Australian National University (ANU), achieved a mix of Distinctions and High Distinctions, and applied again to every university that would take me.\u201d<\/p>\n Accepted by both the University of Queensland and Flinders, Dr Huppatz chose to head to Adelaide.<\/p>\n \u201cI was impressed by Flinders. I liked that they offered a pathway that wasn\u2019t straight from school and seemed to value a variety of life experience. My cohort was the last to complete the six-year degree, graduating in 1998, and I absolutely loved my time there.<\/p>\n \u201cFirst year I lived in University Hall. It wasn\u2019t perfect for my studies or my waistline \u2013 we ate a lot of chips \u2013 but it was great fun. The following year I moved out with friends that I\u2019d made there.<\/p>\n \u201cIn fifth year, I put my hand up to move to Renmark and do the Parallel Rural Community Curriculum, which was established by Emeritus Professor Paul Worley, former Dean of Medicine at Flinders, to get more doctors in rural areas by training them in the country. It was the first program of its kind in Australia.<\/p>\n \u201cInitially I thought we were disadvantaged by not spending time with lots of specialists because it was mostly GP or GP specialist work, but we learnt to do it all and got excellent experience, including an insight into living in a country area. I saw quite plainly the disparities between people who live in country areas and those who live in metro areas.\u201d<\/p>\n Dr Huppatz graduated thinking she\u2019d go into rural general practice. She also left with numerous accolades, receiving a Chancellor\u2019s Letter of Commendation, Jane Preston Memorial Medal for Obstetrics and Gynaecology and the Clinical Prize in Paediatrics. It was the start of many high achievements and award-winning moments across her career.<\/p>\n Making Choices and Creating Opportunities<\/strong><\/p>\n Knowing it was notorious for offering the toughest program and providing excellent training, Dr Huppatz headed to Far North Queensland to undertake Rural General Practice training in the Atherton Tablelands. There she met numerous doctors who were doing public health studies at James Cook University and loving it, so she enrolled in a Master of Public Health simultaneously.<\/p>\n \u201cThey had a very inspiring Head of School of Public Health at the time, Professor David Durrheim. We had talks from people from the Red Cross and M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res, and I realised that\u2019s the sort of work I wanted to do. I finished my GP training knowing<\/p>\n I would head into public health when the opportunity arose.\u201d She spotted an ad for a remote position working in Aboriginal health before she\u2019d done her exam. When it reappeared postexamination, she rang the organisation up, explaining that she\u2019d just finished her GP training but was interested in public health. They flew her up for the interview \u2013 from SA to the Kimberley!<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s how I got my first job in public health. I was hired by Nindilingarri Cultural Health Services, an NGO in Fitzroy Crossing, as Director of Health Services. It was confronting at times, but my boss was an Aboriginal woman who had this great vision for what she wanted \u2013 a health service that really listened to the community and what their priorities were, with programs that prevented illness and promoted health. It was a fantastic role.\u201d<\/p>\n While she was there, Dr Huppatz joined the formal public health physician training program which would contribute to her getting her fellowship of the Australasian Faculty of Public Health Medicine from the Royal Australian College of Physicians in 2009. On a personal note, she met her future husband during \u2018Welcome to Fitzroy\u2019 drinks at the pub. Their life together has been rich with a variety of work experiences and travel.<\/p>\n \u201cMoving around has been one of the most positive things in my life. It has given me a sense of what other people do, and I think that helps you be more relatable. It\u2019s also allowed me to see how other people run health services.<\/p>\n \u201cI purposely shifted to Newcastle after Fitzroy Crossing to work under Professor David Durrheim, who was then the head of the public health unit. I had a couple of years working with him while I was also doing my Master of Applied Epidemiology. Without maybe knowing it, he was my mentor for a long time, and I have often found myself thinking \u2018how would Dave do this\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n It was during her time in Kalgoorlie, working in the Goldfields, that Dr Huppatz laid the foundations for her rise to bigger roles. As the only public health physician in the region, there weren\u2019t a lot of opportunities for professional development, so she reached out to the World Health Organization offering her services as a volunteer.<\/p>\n \u201cThey gave me consultant positions which were absolute gold. I had experiences I never would have got in the Goldfields, like investigating an outbreak in Kiribati, and being part of the post-cyclone emergency response in Vanuatu, then leading their nationwide vaccination coverage survey. I really had to back myself to take those opportunities though. It cost a lot of money and meant uprooting our lives each time. And each time I had a moment of panic, questioning my ability. Then I\u2019d remind myself that I wouldn\u2019t have been picked if they didn\u2019t think I was capable. Learning to do that made a difference for my career and being able to take on the next challenging thing.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s what I would advise younger people to do \u2013 back yourself and invest in yourself because you are what you\u2019ve got at the end of the day.\u201d<\/p>\n Dr Huppatz began working as a Senior Medical Advisor\/Human Biosecurity Officer for the WA Department of Health in January 2019. A year later, she was Coordinator of the Public Health Emergency Operations Centre (PHEOC) in response to COVID-19.<\/p>\n \u201cI happened to be Acting Director of the Communicable Disease Control Directorate at the time COVID hit. The Director went away for a month in January 2020 and as he left on the Friday, he mentioned this \u2018thing that was happening in China\u2019. By the Monday an emergency meeting was called. Within about ten days of him leaving it was on and I knew I needed to open an emergency response centre.\u201d<\/p>\n Dr Huppatz continued to lead PHEOC throughout 2020 and by late 2021 she was elevated to Deputy Chief Health Officer to assist in the hefty legislative piece required to implement a mandatory vaccine. From mid-2022 she led the Contact Tracing Team, which she says was as demanding to scale down as it was to ramp up.<\/p>\n \u201cFor about three years I barely had time to chew my food. I almost burnt out, but I also knew this was what I\u2019d trained for. I got 15 years of experience in three, and an opportunity like that doesn\u2019t come along often.\u201d<\/p>\n Award for Efforts<\/strong><\/p>\n In 2023, Dr Huppatz was awarded a Public Service Medal for \u2018outstanding service through management of public health responses during the COVID-19 pandemic\u2019.<\/p>\n \u201cBeing selected was such a huge honour as there was a massive team of people who all worked really hard. I\u2019m also pleased, as it demonstrated to my children how important all that working was \u2013 my husband and kids were my constant cheer squad!\u201d<\/p>\n Dr Huppatz remains excited about the diversity that working in public health brings and the potential to make a difference.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter COVID I worked on changing the WA abortion laws, and we managed to bring them in line with the rest of Australia. It\u2019s a piece of work that will have a definite benefit for women in our state. Being able to do good for a large population is amazing and such a privilege.\u201d<\/p>\n Her profile states that her career aspiration is to make a significant contribution to public health. One could argue she\u2019s achieved that already.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n By Kate Holland<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cLook for challenges, tell yourself you can do it and give it a red-hot go.\u201d This is the attitude that saw WA\u2019s Deputy Chief Health […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3211,"featured_media":1821,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5833,828,2075,2081],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-50-years-of-medicine","category-college-of-medicine-and-public-health","category-study-health","category-study-medicine"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/alumni-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/alumni-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/alumni-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/alumni-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3211"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/alumni-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/alumni-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1818\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/alumni-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/alumni-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/alumni-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/alumni-stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}