The Trailblazing Surgeon: Kris Rallah-Baker's Journey to Becoming Australia's First Indigenous Ophthalmologist

The moment an eye patch is removed after cataract surgery and a patient can see clearly again: that's the moment of fulfilment for eye surgeon Kris Rallah-Baker. It's even more rewarding for Australia's first Indigenous ophthalmologist to experience that "patch off" moment in remote Indigenous areas because Kris knows he's not just helping the patient but an entire community.

Kris Rallah-Baker (centre) chats with colleagues.

"A lot of the people you are working on are elders and holders of cultural knowledge," Kris tells us. "When those people aren't able to get out on country, they're not able to transmit intergenerational knowledge that's been around for thousands and thousands of years."

"So, there's a broader picture and a deeper importance … you're allowing that intergenerational knowledge to be passed on."

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this article contains images of people who have died.

Kris knows how losing connection to country can affect a family — much of his own history has been lost. Some of his mob were part of the Stolen Generations, taken away by white authorities and put in missions where their stories and language were forbidden.

One of those was his maternal great-grandmother, Lena Nora. She was the daughter of an Aboriginal woman, Mary Nora, who was a domestic servant on a north Queensland station. Lena's father was the Scandinavian station master.

Lena Nora pictured on her wedding day.

For reasons unknown, Mary left, or was sent from, the station with Lena and a son, ending up in a "Black camp" in Bowen. It's believed the camp was raided by authorities. The family was separated, with Lena taken to Barambah mission (now Cherbourg) almost 1,000km away before being sent further south to Myora mission, on Minjerribah, or North Stradbroke Island.

The trauma instilled in Lena a fear and distrust of white authorities. So when Lena fell ill later in life, she refused to go to hospital.

"She was fearful of white institutions because they'd taken her away and they imprisoned her and they enslaved her," Kris says. "She stayed at home and became more and more unwell and then passed of pneumonia."

Lena's story and the need to try to bridge the cultural gap in healthcare delivery is one of the reasons Kris decided to study medicine and, ultimately, ophthalmology.

Mentoring trainee doctors like Aiden Wu is important to Kris Rallah-Baker.

It wasn't an easy road. Kris says those in positions of power put barriers in his way because of his Aboriginality. After qualifying, he was subjected to racism by a fellow doctor, this time for not being Black enough.

But an uncle once told a young Kris that getting where you want to be in life is rarely achieved in a straight line.

It's been a zigzag journey, Kris says, to becoming Australia's first Indigenous ophthalmologist, with a private practice in Noosa and pop-up outreach clinics in remote Indigenous communities.

Now he's working to make the path less ragged for others.

'A life that means something'

On Kris's farm in the Noosa hinterland, there are cattle, sheep and a goat but also his carefully bred flock of rare heritage chickens. Inside is a collection of Georgian antique furniture, his piano, and some of his own paintings and handmade furniture.

He is, he says, "a complex character", with an eclectic range of hobbies.

"For me, a life that means something is a life that gives back to others, but also a life where I've gained as much as I possibly can have gained out of my own life," he says. "Have I engaged in the depth of life?"

Being successful is part of that rich tapestry. "I have my private practice in Noosa, and I'm unashamed about that because my family has been held behind for generations now, and there's no reason why I can't be successful in this Western system," he says.

At his Noosa home, Kris Rallah-Baker tends to his vegetable garden.

One of Kris's first experiences of racism was when he began school in Brisbane after moving with his family from Canberra. At kindergarten in Canberra, he'd been identified as a gifted child — in Brisbane, he was put in an English-as-a-second-language class, purely because of his skin colour.

His mother Raelene ended that as soon as she found out. "It was just this racist assumption about an Aboriginal child," she says. "It was just unacceptable."

Kris Rallah-Baker (seated on slide) as a child with his three brothers, Michael, Murray and David Baker.

Raelene, one of Queensland's first Indigenous health workers, is from the Warrungu mob of the Cardwell/Tully area of north Queensland, and Yuggera from around Brisbane. She also has Irish and Indian heritage. Kris's father, David, has Scottish and Jewish heritage and discovered later in life that he is also Wiradjuri, from NSW's Mudgee area.

Raelene Baker (right) was in her 20s when she started working in the Queensland Aboriginal Health Program (AHP).

"My life has been a life of contrasts," Kris says.

From year 5, Kris went to a private boys' school and excelled at humanities. For a while, he was keen on studying law as a stepping stone to entering politics, an ambition he still holds.

But then Raelene invited an Aboriginal doctor home to chat with a 16-year-old Kris about medicine. By the end of the meeting he set his sights on being a doctor.

After a "horrible year" as a junior doctor, Kris Rallah-Baker stepped back from medicine.

He studied medicine at the University of Newcastle but after spending "a horrible year" as a junior house officer at a major Brisbane hospital, his zigzag route began.

"I concluded that I was not happy working in this huge institution," he says. "There was a lot of bullying and harassment across the board … and I thought, 'Nope, my life is worth more than this."

He took a lower paying job as a senior Indigenous health worker and "I found myself and I found my happiness".

It was through this work that he met ear, nose and throat (ENT) specialist Chris Perry, who recognised Kris's potential.

Says Dr Perry: "His ability to connect with the elders and Queensland Health bureaucracy was very, very good. He's very good with people and he works very hard."

Kris Rallah-Baker "found himself again" when he switched to a job as an Indigenous health worker.

Then Dr Perry asked Kris if he would be interested in a career as an ENT specialist. He wasn't. He told Dr Perry he was interested in ophthalmology.

Dr Perry wasn't offended — he got straight on the phone to eye surgeon colleagues, asking if they could meet with this young Aboriginal doctor.

One of them was Glen Gole who had worked with the late Fred Hollows, the legendary ophthalmologist who dedicated himself to restoring the sight of Indigenous people and those in developing countries.

Professor Gole saw in Kris a keen young doctor who was "worthy of support".

"That changed my entire career trajectory," Kris says. "It was the zigzag."

Kris Rallah-Baker is joined by mum Raelene Rallah-Baker and dad David Baker on his graduation day.

'Not full-blood, are you?'

Ophthalmology is a competitive specialty, with a rigorous and lengthy training and exam regime.

"I felt that a small number of consultants did not want me to finish because I'm Aboriginal", Kris says.

He says his experience of racism rattled his confidence, causing him to fail the exit exams. But by 2018 Kris graduated, and on receiving the news he "just burst into tears".

But Kris, by now the president of the Australian Indigenous Doctors' Association, wanted to ensure others following in his groundbreaking footsteps were not subjected to discrimination.

Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander Australians are three times more likely to have blindness caused by preventable conditions.

He wrote an article about the "direct and unashamed" racism he experienced during his studies, with the hope that it would lead to change.