Aboriginal surgeon and RCS academic Kelvin Kong to speak at Port Stephens Australia Day event

UNSW alumnus and current Rural Clinical School academic Associate Professor Kelvin Kong was one of the first Indigenous doctors to graduate from UNSW after entering medicine through UNSW's Indigenous Entry into Medicine scheme. He has been named the 2016 Australia Day ambassador for Port Stephens. Sam Norris from the Port Stephens Examiner reports:

ABORIGINAL ear surgeon Kelvin Kong has been named the 2016 Australia Day ambassador for Port Stephens.

Dr Kong was raised in Shoal Bay, is a partner in the Newcastle-based Hunter ENT (ear, nose and throat), and often conducts indigenous health clinics in remote places like Broome.

The Australia Day Council of NSW has released a list of 140 prominent sports people, cultural leaders and medical pioneers who will speak to various communities on January 26.

Dr Kong spoke to Fairfax in May when he said his childhood was somewhat chaotic.

Still, he went on to study medicine at the University of NSW and later specialise as an ENT.

‘‘In the household I grew up in there were people coming and going all the time,’’ he said of the two-bedroom Shoal Bay home.

‘‘There wasn’t really such a thing as sleeping arrangements; it wasn’t a nuclear family. 

‘‘My mother had a sister who passed young and she had young kids so they’d stay over a lot; other cousins would too.

“The only thing you could do to get any study done was put your headphones on. I actually concentrate super well with music.’’

With this year’s Australia Day theme Australia Day – Everyone, Everywhere, the Australia Day Ambassadors will also be looking beyond community borders to show how Australia Day is celebrated across the world.

They’ll be encouraging people to go online and share their celebrations using the hashtag #AusDay.

Visit australiaday.com.au to plan your day and don’t forget to hashtag #AusDay.

Original article published in the Port Stephens Examiner by Sam Norris on Dec 20 2015. Read here.

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Alumni