National Science Week 2023 Spotlight - Kirsty Millard

This year's National Science Week, PathWest shines a spotlight on our regional medical scientists.

Meet Kirsty Millard, a Medical Scientist at PathWest Port Hedland. 

Kirsty first came across medical science when she was in year 10, while writing an assignment at school, where they were tasked to pick two career paths and report on them. ‘Science has always been one of my favourite subjects,’ Kirsty shares.

Once while she was in year 12, she attended the open day at Curtin University and watched a demonstration on making and staining blood films. This re-ignited her passion for medical science.

Kirsty applied and studied at Curtin University, received her Bachelor in Science (Laboratory Medicine) and 4 years down the track, Kirsty said ‘I am loving the ever-changing world that is medical science.’

Importance of pathology services in Port Hedland

PathWest Port Hedland is located within the Hedland Health Campus, providing services to not only the hospital and the Port Hedland community but also our outlying communities including Yandeyarra. We also work in conjunction with the Royal Flying Doctors Service (RFDS) to provide care to our more vulnerable patients located in Marble Bar and Nullagine so they are able to get their blood work done without having to travel more than 2 hours to Port Hedland. We provide our services 7 days a week, and when we are not within operating hours, one of our scientists is on-call to ensure care is provided to critical cases.

Kirsty’s message to younger generations

Try not to measure your success against your peers. Success is not linear, people succeed at different rates, and at different aspects of life. By comparing yourself to others you are depreciating your own accomplishments and everything in life will become a competition to constantly better yourself, not for you but to be seen as successful when compared to other people.

Go at your own pace. If you decide that science is for you, there are so many avenues in which you can pursue it and I would encourage anyone to try as many avenues of science as they want. You will gain so much experience from it which in turn will better your career.