Dr Ida Whiteman is originally from Warragul in Victoria. A doctor for eight years, and an early career cardiology doctor working at the Monash Children’s Hospital, Ida has also worked, volunteered and conducted research in Papua New Guinea, Nepal, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka and Timor-Leste.
In 2014, Ida worked in Darwin where she was humbled by the difficulties faced by the Indigenous people of Australia. This experience made her realise that she wanted to further her skills beyond medical training and pursue a Master of International Health and Tropical Medicine at Oxford. It was North Melbourne Rotary Club that assisted her to achieve this in 2017 through a Global Grant Scholarship. On returning to Melbourne, Ida wanted to give back to the club, to the wider Rotary world, and to the community, and so she joined Rotary North Melbourne on 23rd July 2020.
Ida’s personal goals include contributing to the local community, particularly through links between Indigenous Australian organisations and Rotary. She also has a goal to secure support for a Timor-Leste doctor to train in paediatric cardiology in Melbourne, then return with those skills to Timor-Leste where there is a high incidence of rheumatic heart disease among children and no formally trained paediatric cardiologists. This disease affects children in low resource settings, and there are also high rates occurring in Australia, particularly amongst Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. It is a preventable disease that Ida is passionate about helping to reduce.
Grateful to her partner, Dylan, and people who continually strive for a better world, even when the world can be a scary place, Ida believes our biggest challenges in the future are climate change and using technology as a force for good in society. Since being in lockdown, Ida has gone from being able to run for one minute to running 10kms! During her gap year from medical school whilst in New York, Ida taught children to fly the trapeze.