Thrivher Achievements:
Became a Doctor of Medicine 2016
Founder of Swimming School: Pacific Jules
Founder of Ocean Swimming squad: Bold and Beautiful
Female winner Bondi to Watson’s Bay Swim 2005 & 2006 (10 km)
Winner of the Ocean Swims Distance Tally in Australia 2006-2007 season
Rottnest Channel Solo Swim 2006, 2007, 2008 x 2, 2009, 2010, 2016 x 2, 2017 x 6 (19.7 km)
Rottnest Channel Solo Return 2015 (39.4 km)
English Channel Swim 2016 (33.8 km)
The Catalina Channel Swim 2015 (35 km)
Manhattan Island Swim 2017 (48 km)
Cook strait Ocean Swim 2018 (26 km)
Thrivher Dive
I can’t start the day without: A swim in the ocean
Best read of all time: Life of Pi by Yann Martel and The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Non-negotiable: Swimming and Sleeping
Most random job: Picking tomatoes and aubergines
Mindful habits: Swimming
My biggest fear: Spiders
Go-to for fun: Swimming… Well, it’s all I do! (as well as being a doctor)
THRIVHER MOVES:
Did you always know what you wanted to do as a career and did that influence your studies?
I had always wanted to practise Medicine, as far back as I can remember. Unfortunately, by the time I was finishing school I had a boyfriend, which really took my attention away from my studies and I didn’t get the grades I needed to study Medicine.
I began a Higher National Diploma - if I could get enough credits during the first year I would be able to transfer directly onto the second year of an Honours Degree course to then pursue Medicine. I did very well in my Honours Degree, but decided I really needed to start earning some money, so took a position in a hospital undertaking skin cancer research and decided not to continue with medicine at that time. From there I got a job at GlaxoSmithKline doing data management; designing databases for clinical trials.
What was the next most defining point in your career?
I moved to Australia, after a couple of years in similar fields of work to what I’d been doing in England, I still yearned to practise Medicine.