Dr Mark Wenitong

Speaker

Dr Mark Wenitong (Adjunct Associate Professor, James Cook University, School of Tropical Public Health) is from Kabi Kabi tribal group of South Queensland. He is an Aboriginal Public Health Medical Officer at NACCHO, and the Senior Medical Advisor at Apunipima Cape York Health Council. His work entails clinics, clinical governance and strategic primary health care planning. He was the Senior Medical Officer at Wuchopperen Health Services in Cairns for the previous nine years. He has also worked as the medical advisor for OATSIH in Canberra. He was the acting CEO of NACCHO for a period in 2012. He has worked in PHC in East Timor, and has worked in community development with World Vision in Papunya NT. He is a past president and founding member of the Australian Indigenous Doctors Association and is a member of the National Health and Medical Research Committee, National Preventative Health Committee, the National Lead Clinicians Group, a ministerial appointee to the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Equity Council, the National Independent e-Health Advisory Committee, and chairs the Andrology Australia- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Male Reference group, sits on several other committees. He is a council member of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies and a Board member of the Central Australian Aboriginal Congress health service. He sits on the National Health Performance Authority PHC committee. Dr Wenitong has been heavily involved in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health workforce. He is a musician, and has played with various reggae bands in both NQ and NSW. He has published numerous medical journal articles on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander male health and has written chapters for two books. He has received the 2011 AMA Presidents Award for Excellence in Health care, and inducted into the Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Council Hall of Fame, and more recently, was one of the chief investigators awarded the MJA best research journal article for 2012.