Hamish Albany hopes to combine his passion for Indigenous health with his zeal for sports medicine – and his hunger to achieve his dreams is being fuelled by a Sydney Swans apprenticeship.
The 23-year-old Indigenous man is getting a real-life taste of the sports-medicine industry in a four-week stint with head Swans doctor Tom Cross, which counts as an elective placement for the Bachelor of Medical Studies/Doctor of Medicine degree he's tackling at UNSW.
In his four weeks with Dr Cross, Albany is assessing players’ injuries, liaising with the physiotherapy team and analysing case studies of past and present Swans who’ve undergone surgery for piriformis syndrome, a condition in which the piriformis muscle, located in the buttock region, spasms and causes pain.
As the final five days of his four-week stint with Dr Cross tick by, Albany is rapt to have discovered he’d thoroughly enjoy a career in sports medicine.
“It’s a bit tricky but in a good way. I just finished an elective where I was doing GP work for a remote Indigenous community, which I absolutely loved. And now in coming to the Swans and doing sports medicine I’m finding this is another field that I’m really passionate about. This elective has definitely given me a lot to think about,” Albany said.
“My dream is to work in a remote Indigenous community, but sports medicine is something I’m also really passionate about, so whether I can balance the two I guess we’ll see.
“Tom does such a great job as a doctor here at the club and he’s really inspired me to become the best doctor I can be. I see him as someone to aspire to be like, and even if I don’t end up in the field of sports medicine, he’s the type of doctor I want to be.”
Albany linked with Dr Cross through the GO Foundation, an organisation co-founded in 2009 by Swans greats Adam Goodes and Michael O’Loughlin, which provides Indigenous students from kindergarten through to university with fully funded scholarships.
Albany, who’s now in his sixth and final year of his university degree, doesn’t actually have a GO Foundation scholarship, but the impact of the organisation on his life has been enormous nonetheless.
GO Foundation CEO Shirley Chowdhary was a source of guidance as the St Gregory’s College graduate struggled in the third year of his university degree, and he now regularly attends GO Foundation events and is a mentor to a host of scholarship-holders.
“GO has been huge for me,” Albany said.
“My younger brother Noah, who’s in his fourth year of a Bachelor of Law at UNSW, was actually one of the earliest students to graduate with the GO Foundation – and I had an informal introduction to GO through him. I met Goodesy and Micky O’ and they’ve been great mentors for myself and my brother. Shirley, the CEO of GO, has also helped guide me through uni and given me a lot of good advice on how to deal with some of the challenges I’ve had to face.”
In the 10 years since the GO Foundation was established, it has fully funded 210 Indigenous students across 28 schools, four universities and two states.
GO has always supported NSW students since its 2009 inception, and in February 2019 it launched in South Australia, the home state of Goodes and O’Loughlin.
Albany hails from Queensland’s Kalkadoon tribe but grew up on Dharawal land, in Campbelltown in Sydney’s south-west, after his nan moved to the harbour city.
And while he only ever played rugby league and rugby union as a kid, he said he always idolised Goodes and O’Loughlin on the TV and sees them as role models today.
“It’s unreal to know Mick and Adam,” Albany said.
“Seeing them play on the TV when I was growing up was amazing, and they’ve always been big inspirations of mine. They’re obviously big sporting heroes but they’re also really big with the cultural leadership that they’ve shown for Indigenous people in Australia. I don’t think there’d be many Indigenous people who wouldn’t see Mick and Adam as heroes.
“So meeting them at first was quite surreal but I’ve since found they’re actually such genuine people, and they’ve played a mentoring role for me. It’s a funny feeling when you meet someone who you’ve always looked up to and realise that they’re actually just another human.
“It makes you realise that you can shoot for the stars as well.”
