Mid this year, Dr Emily Granger, a cardiothoracic surgeon in Sydney, delivered a presentation to Killara High School. Their Killara Academy is an enrichment course for 150 students exploring many facets of life outside school.

During her talk, Dr Granger spoke of her journey to becoming a surgeon. Beginning school in Brisbane, she completed her medical degree and was sent to Mount Isa Base Hospital. This provided her with valuable experience and exposure in a rural and regional environment. Today, as a cardiothoracic surgeon she performs heart and lung transplants at St Vincents Hospital—the fourth largest heart transplant hospital in the world with approximately 100 heart transplants a year. 

While talking through the steps of how she performs a heart transplant with images and videos, she encouraged the women students to consider surgery as a career. Dr Granger noted that in 2020, 53 per cent of medical graduates were women but only 16 per cent of them became surgeons.

She had the students captivated with her favourite stories of her career. These included a trip to Newcastle, north of Sydney where she travelled back to Sydney in a police car at 180 kilometres an hour with the donors’ heart and travelling in Kerry Packers private jet to retrieve organs.

Dr Granger’s advice to the students—the key to her journey while studying was a balance of learning, studying hard but having fun and playing sport. Today, outside of her work she enjoys time with her family and two sausage dogs.

David Browne, acting principal at Killara High School, said, “Emily’s presentation was perfected pitched—engaging, just the right mix of technical and accessible, and very relatable.”

Inspiring the next generation, indeed!