One recipient in the Queen’s Birthday honours list may not be from Mount Isa – but he has strong local connections to the North West.
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Gold Coast-based Professor Steve Margolis won a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for services to rural medicine and medical education.
Prof Margolis works for the Queensland RFDS and has served as a medical officer in Mount Isa, Cairns and Kowanyama since 2005.
“I’ve been almost 10 years with the RFDS in Mount Isa and my connection has been there for a long time,” Prof Margolis said. “My step daughter was born in Isa, my wife used to be a schoolteacher in Isa and I’ve known Don Bowley for 25 years.”
Prof Margolis has a strong interest in telehealth and Indigenous health issues having also worked in the Aboriginal community of Kowanyama on the Gulf of Carpentaria for three years.
“I am very interested in remote medicine especially in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health,” he said.
“As well as the emergency retrieval with the RFDS I also do clinics in places like Burketown, Camooweal and Boulia.”
He also helps the RFDS provide telehealth services to remote places.
“So in an emergency they ring the doctor and we manage the problem over the phone and we can dispense medication from the (on site medical) kit,” he said.
Prof Margolis said love of the North West was in the blood with his daughter Zara Margolis also a radio presenter at the ABC North West Queensland in Mount Isa.
“It’s not exactly why Zara came there (to Mount Isa) but it helped I had connections there,” he said.