When we look to our healthcare professionals, we want to see a diversity that reflects our community, so that we feel safe and seen. This is exactly the area of research that Murdoch University’s Dr Sasha Aspinall is working on.  

Originally a Murdoch University student, Dr Aspinall became a full time academic at Murdoch University in 2019, where she teaches in the School of Allied Health.  

“We don’t know much about the diversity of chiropractors, chiropractic teachers, and chiropractic researchers in Australia or globally,” says Dr Aspinall. 

It’s important that healthcare professions, including the teachers and researchers within those professions, are diverse to enable them to provide accessible and appropriate care to our increasingly diverse communities.” 

This research includes a look at the gender distribution of presenters at chiropractic conferences globally over a 10-year period, which has led Dr Aspinall to a current project surveying staff in chiropractic courses globally, to gain an understanding of how diverse chiropractic teachers and researchers currently are. 

For Dr Aspinall, Murdoch University’s strategy, Ngala Kwop Biddi, Building a Brighter Future Together, is all about celebrating and supporting people, which is reflected in both her research and teaching.  

“Caring for people should be at the centre of any healthcare profession, and through my teaching I try to foster a collaborative and patient-centred approach in our students, that they can take into their professional careers serving the community,” says Dr Aspinall.  

Dr Aspinall understands the importance of diversity for ensuring students are best serving their community.  

Diversity is important in my teaching, one of the ways this manifests is through the intentional use of diverse images and case studies when teaching students about human movement and diagnosis. 

For Dr Aspinall, this can range from including photos of different body types, skin tones and racial backgrounds to avoid stereotyping and expose students to a range of different mock case studies that explore the varied society we live in.  

“These might seem small, but my hope is that these actions will compound over time to help break down stereotypes and ensure our students are exposed to and accepting of the many differences between people they will one day see in real patients.” 
 
Murdoch University was the first university in Australia to offer flexible admissions, looking to factors other than academic results to make education more accessible, so our commitment to Equity, Diversity and Inclusion has always been apart of who we are and today can be seen throughout our strategy, Ngala Kwop Biddi Building a Brighter Future Together.