By Justine Costigan
Sidney Ruthven (BSc 2020, MGenCouns 2023), a Yiman, Noonuccal woman from South-East Queensland and genetic counsellor at Austin Hospital, happily describes herself as a ‘professional yarner’.
For Indigenous Australians, yarning is a ‘deeply cultural way of learning, sharing and connecting’ – a free-flowing sharing of stories and experiences that helps build strong relationships.
Having deep, personal conversations with people about their genetic profile, families, lives and hopes for the future is exactly what the Master of Genetic Counselling from the University of Melbourne prepared Sidney Ruthven to do. But it goes beyond her training – Ms Ruthven says she’s “been yarning [her] whole life.”
Credit: Peter Casamento
A rare and valuable profession
With postgraduate training and expertise in genetics, health communication and counselling, genetic counsellors combine research, clinical care, education and policy. Although the first Australian genetics counsellor position was created in NSW in 1987, demand for the role has grown slowly.
Growing up with our traditional stories… well I didn't know that word for genetics, but I've been talking about genetics my whole life, so it kind of just made sense in the end. Sidney Ruthven
Today, there are only around 230 genetic counsellors working in the country. It’s described by the University of Melbourne as one of the rarest jobs in Australia.
Ms Ruthven was the first in her family to attend university and Australia’s first Indigenous genetic counsellor. When she moved from Queensland to Victoria at 17 to start a science degree at the University of Melbourne, she wasn’t sure what career she wanted to pursue. “I kind of tried a little bit of everything – zoology, marine science, engineering. I did a little bit of pure mathematics at one time. I tried everything, but then ended up really loving genetics,” she says.
“Growing up with our traditional stories… well I didn't know that word for genetics, but I've been talking about genetics my whole life, so it kind of just made sense in the end.”
Credit: Peter Casamento
A community lens on genetics
Interest in genetics in western science goes back to the ancient Greeks, but modern understanding of the field has its roots in the late 19th and 20th centuries. In Indigenous culture, says Ms Ruthven, knowledge of family lines stretches back thousands of years.
Through our stories, through our totem tracking and understanding how we connect to people and how we connect to place…that is our system of genetics. Sidney Ruthven
Making those connections and understanding genetics from a community perspective is key to working with Indigenous clients, says Ruthven. It’s here that those yarning skills are essential.
“The first thing we do when we step into a genetics appointment is talk through family, which is really important in a community-focused cultural setting…we have a lot of traditional stories about how we connect to the country, as well as how we connect to other people,” she says.
“So, when I meet someone else who's Indigenous, I can family track with them as a way of referencing who and how we relate to each other and places where we share connections.”
It’s also about acknowledging the different ways people and communities make decisions, says Ms Ruthven.
“When someone says, ‘We're going to help you make an autonomous decision’, they're usually talking about one person. My understanding of autonomy is collective. So, if you put me in a room and say, ‘Make this choice’, it's not going to be informed, because [culturally] I need to consider those around me too.”
Connection the key to holistic healthcare
Providing cultural safety is imperative given Indigenous peoples’ experiences of racism and discrimination in the healthcare system, the broken family connections as a result of forced removals, and the dark history of eugenics in Australia, including at the University of Melbourne. That history is highlighted in 2024’s Volume I of Dhoombak Goobgoowana, and in the exhibition 65,000 Years: A Short History of Australian Art at thePotter Museum of Art, where the eugenics section comes with a warning for visitors. Rebuilding trust isn’t easy.
It's a really beautiful space to hold and to share with someone or a family…a really unique space. I would like to see health [overall] become more like this. Genetics shouldn't be the exception. Sidney Ruthven
“If we get cultural safety right for Indigenous Australia, we get it right for everyone, because we all have different cultural values and norms. And, you know, we have a beautifully multicultural country as a collective. That's where genetic counselling is a little bit different, because we do connect more on that personal level.”
“It's a really beautiful space to hold and to share with someone or a family…a really unique space. I would like to see health [overall] become more like this. Genetics shouldn't be the exception.”
Ms Ruthven believes this sense of community, and a focus on connection and place will inevitably play a greater role in health.
“I'd like to think in the future in genomic counselling – because that's going to be a completely different space – we'll sit down with a person and go, ‘Okay, this is where you grew up. This is the genetic history of your community and how you relate to other people and how that influences how you've connected to that place. Here's a unique profile, not just for cancer, but all these other aspects of who [you are] and how your health could change over time’,” she says.
Thinking about all the genes and how they interact, and how it all interacts with the environment. That is the future. Sidney Ruthven
Sidney Ruthven was supported in her studies by an MDHS Indigenous Student Bursary, awarded to Indigenous students who are enrolled in an undergraduate or graduate coursework degree in the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences.
Support students like Sidney here:
Credit: Peter Casamento
Key milestones at the University of Melbourne and in Victoria for Truth and Treaty
- 28 May 2024
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The University of Melbourne published Volume I of the book Dhoombak Goobgoowana: A History of Indigenous Australia and the University of Melbourne.
The book was written and edited by Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor Marcia Langton AO and historians Dr Ross L Jones and Dr James Waghorne and published by Melbourne University Publishing.
‘Dhoombak Goobgoowana’ means ‘truth-telling’ in the Woi Wurrung language of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people, on whose unceded lands several University of Melbourne campuses are located. The book included chapters on the University of Melbourne’s colonial and eugenics history and complicity in scientific racism.
- 2 July 2025
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The Victorian Yoorook Justice Commission released Australia’s first Indigenous-led truth telling report.
This report found that the First Peoples of Victoria have endured crimes against humanity and genocide since the beginning of colonisation in Victoria – and are still being impacted by systemic injustice today as a result.
- 12 August 2025
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Dhoombak Goobgoowana, Volume 2 was published.
- 9 September 2025
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Australia’s first treaty between a state government and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people was introduced to the Victorian parliament.