Settling in Australia and making an impact
After meeting her husband in the US, Barbora spent time in Fiji where her husband worked for the World Health Organisation, before finally settling in Australia in 2004.
In 2010, Barbora was awarded Fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians after completing the medical specialist exams. Later, she worked at the University of Copenhagen and Monash University before joining RMIT. In 2018, she was promoted to Professor and her contribution to clinical research was recognised by the Australian Diabetes Society award.
Despite having achieved so much here – and across her entire career – Barbora has greater ambitions for the future.
“Being recognised through an Order of Australia is a significant acknowledgement but the question is, what can you do with that for the greater good of society and the medical profession?” she said.”
“Recently, I have completed an Executive MBA at Monash University, which was one of the best things I’ve done in my life.”
“Businesses approach problems in a very different way than healthcare institutions. There is much scope to borrow from that thinking to tackle wicked healthcare problems more effectively.”
“Out of MBA came the idea of using design thinking to address patient and health service pain points and to set up a Centre for Health by Design at RMIT and teach design thinking to our health students. Businesses use design thinking to identify pain points along the user journey and to redefine the problems which results in truly innovative solutions.”
“The Centre would support clinicians and healthcare services to approach problems in healthcare in a more holistic manner using design-thinking and multidisciplinary teams bringing together RMIT’s strong expertise in design, engineering, computing and health to create unique innovative approaches.”
“Another area of focus which I am very passionate about is supporting the wellbeing of staff and mentoring women. At Monash University, I was a member of the WISDoM (Women in Science, Discovery and Medicine) committee. I also mentored early and mid-career scientists through a formal mentoring framework. Because I benefited from great mentors myself and there is no such thing at RMIT, I would love to set up something similar here."
I believe people are our greatest asset and we need to take good care of them.
Whatever the future may hold, Barbora has come a long way from what looked possible when she was younger, but she’s always had big dreams.
“When I was about 12, I told my father I wanted to go and study in the United States. I was inspired by the land where everything is possible.” she said.
“And I remember that he had tears in his eyes because he thought I would never be able to leave Slovakia.”
With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the drawing of the Iron Curtain, change came for Slovakia, and for Barbora. It marked the start of a global journey that has changed many lives for the better.
Story by: Finn Devlin
