Photo: Tamara Birchall
Tamara Birchall was born and raised in Kaikohe in the Far North, but it was a year living on First Nation reservations in Canada as a teenager which inspired her to become a doctor and give back to her local community.
It was a long, hard road for Dr Birchall, who lost her mother to cancer just after her final medical school exams at Auckland University. The day after her graduation ceremony, she was badly injured in a car accident which killed her fiancee and grandmother.
Seven years on, 34 year old Dr Birchall is part way through her specialty GP training, and runs outreach clinics in the Far North, where Covid 19 has added a whole layer of complexity to her work.
