Dr Loyola Wills, is a medical woman of the Wagadagam Tribe, from Mabuiag and Badu Lag in Zenadth Kes (Torres Strait Islands). She grew up on Larrakia country (the Darwin regions), before spending some years on Kaurna Land (the Adelaide Plains). There, Loyola achieved a Bachelor of Arts (International Studies, Sociology, Legal Studies & ‘Indigenous’ studies, before completing a Doctor of Medicine MD at Flinders University, in 2023.

In 2024, she completed her internship at Cairns Base Hospital, a major hospital in Gimuy, Far North Queensland, before transferring to Brisbane (Meanjin) in 2025, to begin formal training to be a rural and remote doctor on the Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine (ACRRM) Program, with her aim to become a rural generalist.

Loyola emphasises that she is “first and foremost a mother of two kaazi — young children.” She sees her children as central to her medical journey and draws strength from them in encouraging other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mothers to pursue a career in Medicine.

Dr Loyola Wills speaking in a plenary session at PRIDOC December 2024 “Sensing that Salt Water – The Journey Home , A Spoken Yarn”

Dr Wills is part of the Torres Strait Islander Doctors’ group “Igilyawa – Custodians of Life” who travelled as a group to their ancestral lands in 2024. This was the subject of her moving key-note presentation at the Pacific Region Indigenous Doctors Conference (PRIDOC) in Adelaide as Purple Bush Medicine Leaves Recipient in 2024, and her transformative presentation at the 2025 August Dinner meeting of the Queensland Medical Women Society.

Loyola has been instrumental in raising the profile of the Alumnae of the Purple Bush Medicine Leaves Bursary Program, and a generous mentor to other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander medical students. In Loyola’s words, one of the most important events each year is the AIDA — Australian Indigenous Doctors’ Association — conference.

She describes it as a:

“family gathering that strengthens our spirit and reminds us why we became doctors in the first place: for the betterment of our people, within a space that has historically been, and continues to be, unsafe for blakfullas.”

In 2025, she completed Obstetric experience at the Mater Mothers’ Hospital and was recipient of the 2025 QMWS-NCWQ Bursary sponsored by Mater 2025 NCWQ Bursary Yearbook. She also recently undertook a rural clinical term in Tennant Creek and is currently undertaking a mix of General Practice and Rural Generalist Emergency Medicine in the Cape in Far North Queensland.

Dr Blair Rasmussen (Gunggarri/Mandandanji); Dr Loyola Wills (Wagadagam); Dr Natalie Pink (Nyikina); Dr Julia-Rose Satre (Yawuru); working in the Cape of Far North Queensland

Dr Loyola Wills (Wagadagam); Dr Vennassa Wong (Gubbi Gubbi/Saibai); Dr Sherice Ansell (Arrernte); Dr Karlie James (Yorta Yorta/Gunaikurnai/Kuku-Djungan) working at Tennant Creek Hospital in early 2026.

In receiving the NCWQ Bursary, Loyola also commented:

“My main goal in the future is to live and work on my ancestral islands, to support my community and their need for a model of care that is designed around, and implements our: cultural values, our ailan kastom, and a strength and research based approach to the chronic health conditions that we suffer as a result of colonisation.”
“I am on a journey at the moment as a junior Doctor to build the necessary skills required to work in a remote area. I thank the sponsors of this scholarship for providing me the opportunity to do this by way of funding my attendance at important learning experiences to help me build those skills. Mina big eso”