An anaesthetist who had a gun pointed at her head by Islamic State militants in Iraq, an Afghan surgeon who had family killed by militants and a Ukrainian obstetrician who survived Russian bombs have been given a new start at a Brisbane hospital.
A Mater Hospital program that began in 2019, and was cut short due to COVID-19, has come off life support to enable refugee doctors to revive their medical careers that were disrupted by conflict.
The six-month clinical observership allows doctors to be inducted into the Australian healthcare system by doing rounds with supervisors in the emergency care, infectious diseases, cardiology and neurology departments as well as the hospital's Refugee Complex Care Clinic.
After fleeing Afghanistan in 2019 because of the deteriorating security situation and the death of his brother-in-law, Dr Karim Amani has been relishing being in an emergency department again after five years.
The orthopaedic and trauma surgeon cannot operate on patients in Australia until he professionally qualifies by sitting specific accredited exams that have a low passing rate.
The observership has been readying him by giving a passenger's seat view of medical theatres.
"Although there are a lot of similarities between Australia and Afghanistan's medical system, because it was set up by the Americans (in the last 25 years), the observership makes us familiar with the system here," he told AAP.
Dr Amani has treated victims of bomb explosions in his homeland, which was taken over by the extremist Taliban regime in 2021 after US and allied troops withdrew.
"Patient-centred care here is a big difference because of cultural obstacles in Afghanistan, especially for female patients, so it has been good learning this."
He has been making ends meet by driving for Uber and working as an interpreter.
Dr Amani says innovative routes should be provided - especially for refugee doctors who cannot return to their countries - to acquire more experience.
"In Australia, they want you to show the recency of practice if there is a professional gap and they say you need to go back to your country for a few months."
"But if a person like me escaped because of the security problems how can I go back? It's like going on a suicide mission."
After months of lobbying with many doctors at the hospital, Dr Manal Aqrawe along with another doctor from Burundi were the first international medical graduates to go through the program.
Passing her medical exams and securing a job at a north Brisbane hospital, she has now returned as a mentor for this year's participants.
She is intimately aware of the long road ahead to practise as a doctor in Australia from a refugee background.
June marked 10 years since terror group Islamic State invaded her hometown of Mosul and went on to take huge swathes of Iraq and Syria within months.
Dr Aqrawe, 58, remembers staring down the barrel of a gun pointed at her head by an ISIS militant.
"The feeling is you're facing death in the face," she said.
"They attacked our home and one of them (ISIS militants) told me 'if you want to stay alive just go in one direction and don't turn back or else we will kill you'."
She remembers hurriedly putting her elderly parents in her car and driving towards safety in Kurdistan (north Iraq) where they found shelter in a local church with hundreds of families.
Dr Aqrawe says arriving in Australia in April 2016 has given her a new lease on life.
"Australia opened the doors for families that suffered from ISIS like us ... we are starting again our journey from the bottom but we are lucky enough to be safe," she said.
But she pointed to how refugee doctors find it impossible to fill the gap in their careers caused by the outbreak of conflict demanded by accrediting institutions in Australia.
"This gap is a huge barrier to finding a job for refugee doctors compared to other migrant doctors because they can go back to their countries for a few months and practise, but we can't go back," she explained.
For Dr Inna Malynochka, 47, who worked as a gynaecologist in Ukraine for more than a decade before moving to Australia in 2017, the Russian invasion has hit close to home.
Her apartment in Vinnitsya, in the centre of the scarred country, was 800 metres away from Russian shelling last year.
In 2023, she spent three months there with her parents and managed to work in a small private hospital, which spurred her to apply for the observership.
"It's a new start, good push for me to just take off ... I'm ready to continue studying, working hard and apply for jobs," Dr Malynochka said.
"I'm so happy when I can see the smiling eyes of my patients and they're very grateful because they're not sick anymore."
Dr Malynochka, whose round ends in August, praised the mentorship and collegiality she experienced under her supervisors.
"It's kind of an amazing team which works to help you. It's a big family."
The program also equips the doctors with preparation for the exams, applying for future jobs and professional development.
"It's a new start, good push for me to just take off ... I'm ready to continue studying, working hard and apply for jobs," Dr Malynochka said.
