It's a measure of Dr Janine Mohamed's humility that she has referred to herself in the past as the 'accidental CEO'.
While some people with that title may well have attained it without merit, the same can hardly be said for someone who has spent decades working tirelessly in the Indigenous health sector.
From her start as a nurse to her current position leading the esteemed Lowitja Institute, the Narrunga Kaurna woman says her motivation has always been the same.
"My moral compass is always my community. They're my litmus test," she told NITV.
"And I always want to be my authentic self when doing this work. For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, you get sussed out pretty quick if you're [pretending to be] something you're not!"
Dr Mohamed was recognised for her work with one of the country's highest honours this week, named 2023's Australian of the Year for Victoria.
It's a capstone to decades of work improving both the rate of Indigenous participation in the health workforce, and that same workforce's cultural safety for First Nations people.
"When I went into nursing, there were missed opportunities.
"There was this deficit discourse about Indigenous people, how they were ill, and how we as nurses needed to help them ... And the problem was always placed on Indigenous peoples rather than the system that was causing harm."
Changing the system
The role of cultural safety in improving both the access to and quality of healthcare received by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is well-documented.
Dr Mohamed has been part of that recognition. Another of her passions, connected to Indigenous people's access to culturally safe care, is the rate of Indigenous healthcare professionals.
"I'm so encouraged that there's more Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander doctors, nurses, midwives than ever before.
"But if you look at nursing, we're still only just over 1 per cent of the nursing workforce, and yet we're 3% of the population. So we've still got a ways to go."
While it can be confronting to be the minority in a system that has historically ignored the knowledges and needs of First Nations people, Dr Mohamed is bouyed by the improvements she's seen first hand.
One of the most successful ventures, hailed for the life-saving improvements it brought to First Nations mothers, is the birthing on Country initiative, especially important to the former paediatric nurse.
"For 60,000 plus years, our women have been birthing on Country. It's only in the last 200 years, when we've been allowed, to have a birth in mainstream hospitals," she said.
"So it was really important for me and a group of Indigenous midwives that we restored the cultural practise, the cultural determinant, of working on Countries so that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and their families had the best start in life."
Taking her place in history
Dr Mohamed says the award is yet to sink in.
"I feel so honoured and humbled to be able to accept the award.
"But I do think about the many people that have come before me."
This reflection on the storied history of staunch Blak healers is a common one for her.
She nominates famous names such as Sally Goold and Lowitja O'Donohue (for whom the institute Mohamed now leads was named), but also some closer to home.
Her grandmother, who raised her family in the throes of poverty and mental illness, is an exemplar.
"She's my number one inspiration. Of course, my other inspiration is my community and my family.
"They inspire me every day. And this work is so that hopefully they don't have to do this work ... so that my kids get to do something different."
But for the moment, the good doctor says it's business as usual, even as her win puts her in the running for Australian of the Year this January.
"It won't be that different for me. I'm always working at a cracking pace," she said.
"I'll keep doing the work that I've done for so long because it's a lifelong journey. It'll be my purpose until the day I die."
