By Neena Bhandari
As a young girl, Anushka Patel would travel with her father, a respiratory physician working in the field of tuberculosis, to remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in Far North Queensland. She recalls being shocked to see a part of Australia that was akin to a developing country. It kindled her interest in working with disadvantaged populations and finding effective solutions to providing affordable healthcare.
She seriously began to consider medicine as an attractive career option during her high school years. After completing an undergraduate degree from the University of Queensland in Brisbane, she trained as a cardiologist in Sydney, before heading to Harvard University in Boston [USA] to pursue a Master of Science degree in Epidemiology.