Synopsis

With unique access to lives and workplaces of First Nations doctors, nurses, paramedics and health workers, as well as to traditional healers and cultural ceremonies, OUR MEDICINE is a groundbreaking series privy to emergency medical services and frontline call-outs, emotional patient journeys, high-stakes decision-making.

From the early days of colonisation and still continuing today, many First Nations peoples have been locked in a tragic cycle of poor health outcomes. Life expectancy is currently around 8 years lower for First Nations peoples in Australia than for non-indigenous Australians, largely due to a higher incidence of chronic diseases, respiratory diseases, heart diseases, diabetes and kidney diseases. OUR MEDICINE tackles this difficult but critically important subject matter through the eyes of our key participant medical practitioners, employing humour, candid moments, blunt honesty and emotional journeys of transformation as each practitioner pursues their calling. Our First Nations heroes are based in an array of metropolitan, regional and remote areas across the country, working across a wide variety of medical roles and fields. In OUR MEDICINE, each of their deeply personal stories of individual aspiration and endeavour come together to tell a much larger story.

As seen through the eyes of our practitioners, the series examines a complex medical system in desperate need of reform and of greater participation of First Nations practitioners if it is to provide more acceptable health outcomes and more culturally-appropriate health care to the First Nations peoples and communities of Australia.