The moment an eye patch is removed after cataract surgery and a patient can see clearly again: that's the moment of fulfilment for eye surgeon Kris Rallah-Baker.
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It's even more rewarding for Australia's first Indigenous ophthalmologist to experience that "patch off" moment in remote Indigenous areas because Kris knows he's not just helping the patient but an entire community.
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"A lot of the people you are working on are elders and holders of cultural knowledge," Kris tells Australian Story.
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"When those people aren't able to get out on country, they're not able to transmit intergenerational knowledge that's been around for thousands and thousands of years.
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"So, there's a broader picture and a deeper importance … you're allowing that intergenerational knowledge to be passed on."
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Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this article contains images of people who have died.
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Kris knows how losing connection to country can affect a family — much of his own history has been lost.
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Some of his mob were part of the Stolen Generations, taken away by white authorities and put in missions where their stories and language were forbidden.
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For reasons unknown, Mary left, or was sent from, the station with Lena and a son, ending up in a "Black camp" in Bowen.
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It's believed the camp was raided by authorities.
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The family was separated, with Lena taken to Barambah mission (now Cherbourg) almost 1,000km away before being sent further south to Myora mission, on Minjerribah, or North Stradbroke Island.
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The trauma instilled in Lena a fear and distrust of white authorities.
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So when Lena fell ill later in life, she refused to go to hospital.
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"She was fearful of white institutions because they'd taken her away and they imprisoned her and they enslaved her," Kris says.
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"She stayed at home and became more and more unwell and then passed of pneumonia."
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Lena's story and the need to try to bridge the cultural gap in healthcare delivery is one of the reasons Kris decided to study medicine and, ultimately, ophthalmology.
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Kris says those in positions of power put barriers in his way because of his Aboriginality.
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After qualifying, he was subjected to racism by a fellow doctor, this time for not being Black enough.
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But an uncle once told a young Kris that getting where you want to be in life is rarely achieved in a straight line.
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It's been a zigzag journey, Kris says, to becoming Australia's first Indigenous ophthalmologist, with a private practice in Noosa and pop-up outreach clinics in remote Indigenous communities.
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Now he's working to make the path less ragged for others.
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Loading...'A life that means something'
On Kris's farm in the Noosa hinterland, there are cattle, sheep and a goat but also his carefully bred flock of rare heritage chickens.
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He is, he says, "a complex character", with an eclectic range of hobbies.
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"For me, a life that means something is a life that gives back to others, but also a life where I've gained as much as I possibly can have gained out of my own life," he says.
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"Have I engaged in the depth of life?"
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"I have my private practice in Noosa, and I'm unashamed about that because my family has been held behind for generations now, and there's no reason why I can't be successful in this Western system," he says.
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One of Kris's first experiences of racism was when he began school in Brisbane after moving with his family from Canberra.
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At kindergarten in Canberra, he'd been identified as a gifted child — in Brisbane, he was put in an English-as-a-second-language class, purely because of his skin colour.
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His mother Raelene ended that as soon as she found out.
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"It was just this racist assumption about an Aboriginal child," she says.
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She also has Irish and Indian heritage.
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Kris's father, David, has Scottish and Jewish heritage and discovered later in life that he is also Wiradjuri, from NSW's Mudgee area.
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"My life has been a life of contrasts," Kris says.
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From year 5, Kris went to a private boys' school and excelled at humanities.
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For a while, he was keen on studying law as a stepping stone to entering politics, an ambition he still holds.
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But then Raelene invited an Aboriginal doctor home to chat with a 16-year-old Kris about medicine.
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By the end of the meeting he set his sights on being a doctor.
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He studied medicine at the University of Newcastle but after spending "a horrible year" as a junior house officer at a major Brisbane hospital, his zigzag route began.
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"I concluded that I was not happy working in this huge institution," he says.
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"There was a lot of bullying and harassment across the board … and I thought, 'Nope, my life is worth more than this.'"
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…and 50 more, not listed.
The Aporia