Profile: Dr Claudia Paul

Originally written for the University of Adelaide’s 2019 Tirkapena Indigenous Award

Dr Claudia Paul, a Wiradjuri woman from Broken Hill, has achieved a lot in her 26 years, but her goals are even more impressive.

During her time at university, she was a student representative with the Australian Indigenous Doctors Association, and was active in a mentoring group that fostered links between Indigenous medical students and medical practitioners.

She now hopes to be one of the first (if not the first) female Indigenous surgeons in Australia and to eventually establish a surgical outreach service for rural and remote areas.

“My plan is to change the life of one patient at a time, one community at a time, and eventually reduce the morbidity and mortality of those suffering in outback Australia,” she said.

Claudia recently completed her Master of Traumatology through the University of Newcastle and a MSc in International Health and Tropical Medicine at the University of Oxford in the UK. She is currently working towards her DPhil, a three-year research program looking at the use of electrospun nanonfibers for soft tissue attachment in musculoskeletal trauma.

In 2017, Claudia became only the third Australian Indigenous person to be awarded a Rhodes Scholarship.

“By being an Indigenous Rhodes Scholar, I will help to make it feel a little easier again for the next person.”