E kore te tangata e pakari i te māhanga i a ia anake (a person cannot become strong by remaining in their comfort zone). If you want to see where hard work and determination can get you, look no further than Otago Medical School graduand Carlton Irving.
For the past six years, Carlton (Te Whakatōhea, Te Ūpokorehe) has worked up to 100-hour weeks, often surviving on 4-5 hours’ sleep a night as he juggled full-time work and a whānau while training to be a doctor.
“Doing medicine for me has been like running a marathon at a sprint pace,” he says.
Carlton graduates with a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MB ChB) in Dunedin tomorrow.
With more than 20 years’ experience in the health sector, Carlton was a critical care paramedic before moving into healthcare leadership and medical practice.
As a paramedic, he saw firsthand the effect of health inequities. This led to him wanting to champion change for Māori health and, ultimately, to his decision to become a doctor.
“If you see a problem and you walk past it, then you become part of the problem. I’ve always believed that if I can help, I should.”
A self-described “high school dropout”, Carlton, originally from Ōpōtiki, says he didn’t come from a privileged background and university was never on the cards.
However, following other tertiary study, he started his medical training in Dunedin at age 40 and as a father of five.