The Junior Doctor With a Corporate CV
Dr Wallace Jin (2016) is redefining what it means to be a doctor – combining frontline medicine with corporate strategy to tackle health inequity at a systems level, driven by the Ormond ideal of making a “disproportionate difference.”
Sunday 13 March 2022 • 5 minute read
Working as a resident doctor tends to be all-consuming, but not for Wallace Jin (2016). He is combining medical training and a corporate career, with the goal of tackling health inequality on a systems level.Dr Wallace Jin recalls former Ormond Master, Rufus Black, challenging students to make a “disproportionate difference” at every opportunity. “It’s something I remember to this day,” says the Royal Melbourne Hospital resident, who saw Professor Black’s challenge as “to make a difference that’s bigger than yourself”.
It’s safe to say that Wallace, who was awarded Victorian Young Achiever of the Year in 2020, has already made an outsized contribution to his community. As the previous CEO and a current Board Director of award-winning, volunteer-led health education charity CHASE (Community Health Advancement and Student Engagement), he helps lead an organisation dedicated to empowering disadvantaged young people in Melbourne’s north and west. The innovative, hands-on program matches university mentors with small groups of VCAL high school students to develop health literacy and enterprise skills.Wallace has been part of the organisation since 2017, when he was still a medical student. He remains deeply committed, despite the pressures of his current role as a junior doctor in one of Melbourne’s busiest emergency departments.“CHASE has been a huge part of my university life and there’s a strong part of me attached to it. It’s taught me so much. I hope to continue for a little longer, and then it will be time for someone else to step up, with fresh insights,” he says.But Wallace’s role with CHASE is not the only commitment he is juggling with his medical career. Despite being in the middle of what many doctors consider one of the toughest points of their training, he is also building an impressive corporate track record, which includes scholarships with both Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in 2019 and McKinsey & Company in 2020. The BCG scholarship came with a job offer, which he is taking up next year while he takes a break from medicine.At first glance, Wallace may appear torn between working in the hospital and the boardroom. However, his ambitions extend beyond traditional career boundaries; he sees his medical and corporate experiences as complementary, rather than contradictory. It’s all leading towards a single comprehensive goal: to address health inequity.“I’m planning to integrate my two skill sets so that I can work on improving healthcare on a systems level,” he explains. “I’ve found that I really love working as a doctor, it’s such a great
opportunity to help people. But I’m also very driven to help tackle structural inequalities in Australian healthcare, which is where I’m hoping my corporate skills will come in useful.”His ambitions are particularly timely, with the COVID pandemic exposing (and, often, worsening) long-running inequities within Australia’s healthcare system. “The people who are getting the sickest, and also suffering the most economically, are those at the margins of our society,” says Wallace. And he’s determined to do something about it.
opportunity to help people. But I’m also very driven to help tackle structural inequalities in Australian healthcare, which is where I’m hoping my corporate skills will come in useful.”His ambitions are particularly timely, with the COVID pandemic exposing (and, often, worsening) long-running inequities within Australia’s healthcare system. “The people who are getting the sickest, and also suffering the most economically, are those at the margins of our society,” says Wallace. And he’s determined to do something about it.
Committed to social justice As a second-generation migrant, Wallace grew up appreciating his own privilege and the importance of serving the community.His time at Ormond College ignited this innate sense of social justice, connecting him with people from low socio-economic communities through various volunteering programs. Mentoring Year 11 students in Melbourne’s inner north-west as the Ormond College Program Coordinator for Teach For Australia was particularly eye-opening.“I’d come across students whose backgrounds were very different to my own,” Wallace says. “It was the culmination of many small experiences that made the biggest impact to how I viewed civic responsibility - like the student who thanks you at the end of the school year for inspiring them to pursue a career that they would’ve never previously considered.”Those experiences got him thinking about the importance of early intervention and preventative healthcare, particularly on a community-level. It’s a commitment that has only deepened since he started working as a doctor.In the emergency department at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, Wallace says he sees too many relatively young patients suffering from preventable illnesses like diabetes and stroke.“Often, they just don’t have the health literacy and education that would’ve enabled them to manage their health better at a younger age, and as a result they’ve ended up in hospital earlier than most. It’s difficult to do, but preventative healthcare can break that vicious cycle. And it needs to start young,” he says.By building both clinical and corporate skills to tackle this huge challenge, Wallace’s laser-focused work ethic is incredibly rare. But it’s what the problem demands. Whatever he does next, one thing is for sure: it won’t follow a traditional path.Wallace’s advice to his Ormond self: “Don’t be afraid to try new things. There are so many opportunities and people of every background at Ormond that, by staying open-minded and proactive, you can grow in ways you might not have imagined.”
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