Alumni News
Education Week - celebrating public education
One of four sisters to have walked the MFG corridors, Sophie Brough (from the class of 2009), was our guest of honour and speaker at the Education Week assembly.
Sophie had a passion for science and knew, mid-way through her secondary school years, that this is what she wanted to pursue.
Sophie went on to complete a three-year Bachelor of Science majoring in physiology at the University of Melbourne, receiving several academic scholarships and awards along the way. After completing a research honours year, she returned home to Geelong and studied a four-year post graduate Bachelor of Medicine/Bachelor of Surgery at Deakin University.
Following her study, Sophie spent three years at Barwon Health as a junior doctor working in a variety of areas, including: surgery, paediatrics, obstetrics, endocrinology, and infectious diseases. She also completed two rural stints in emergency medicine at Hamilton and Warrnambool hospitals.
Sophie has completed one year of specialized training to become a general practitioner, up-skilling in women’s and reproductive health and children’s health. She has, however, taken a short break from this after welcoming her first child, Tom, into the world. Sophie has one final set of exams to go which we wish her all the best in!
In her speech, Sophie acknowledged that eight years of tertiary study is not for everybody. Instead, what she wanted students to know was that she was able to achieve whatever it was she wanted to achieve with her public education. In fact, she is thankful for having had the opportunity to attend a state secondary school, as this has prepared her well for her work as a GP, where she is able to relate well with her patients who, just like her secondary school peers, come from all walks of life.
Looking back, Sophie now realizes and appreciates that you don’t need to have the best of everything to do well. What you do need are the basics, which she believes are supportive teachers and encouraging peers, with a healthy dose of competition thrown in there to make you strive harder. These three ingredients were in abundance when she was a student at MFG and is something she will be forever grateful for.
Sophie has kindly offered to return to MFG again, in the not-too-distant future, to chat with any students interested in following a similar pathway. We will be definitely taking her up on this offer!
If you are a past student of MFG, please reach out: alumni@mfgsc.vic.edu.au
Tanja Dunat
Alumni Coordinator