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From professional squash to the Bubonic plague.

How Rohan hopes to combine his love for sport with a passion for being a positive influence on health in communities experiencing disadvantage.

Rohan Toole didn’t leave school knowing the career path he’d end up carving out of his disparate passions. He didn’t even know he had some of those passions at the time.

Rohan’s love of sport, and squash in particular, led him to pursue professional squash playing for a few years, while studying a teaching degree.

However, when moving to Sydney to take his squash playing to the next level, and doing some coaching, the unexpected happened – COVID-19 lockdowns. Professional sport was shut down, leaving Rohan searching for an alternative career that would feed his love for sport, and particularly getting younger people into sport, while providing him with greater meaning and long-term career potential.

Looking online for inspiration, he found ����logo School of Population Health’s Bachelor of International Public Health (BIPH), and loved the sound of the wide variety of courses offered as part of that degree.

“The degree really interested me. I wanted to move away from professional sport, but still have some connection to it. I want to get people healthy, get them back into sport, because I’d definitely noticed a drop off in squash participation, especially with junior players.”

Excited by the idea of a new industry and trying something different, Rohan undertook the BIPH as a fully online student.

His experience as a student was really positive.

“I loved the degree from the first course – I knew I’d picked the right one from term one. My teachers were really awesome and the internship at The Kirby Institute was the cherry on top. I wanted to get a degree done quickly, while working, so the online option was perfectly suited to my needs. If someone is umm-ing and ahh-ing about the usefulness of a degree, like I was at the start, you shouldn’t. It’s definitely useful – you will use a public health degree.”

It was ����logo’s connection to active research and its global connections that Rohan really found beneficial.

“����logo is on the cutting edge of information and research in public health. I had no idea what I wanted to do when I started – public health is a broad subject area. It can feel hard to narrow down. But ����logo has so many real-world case studies and situations to draw on when teaching, such good research and resources in the field of public health, that the content is engaging and up-to-date with current issues.”

Rohan also appreciated that there were courses specifically for helping students decide which direction they felt drawn toward. And the input of the lecturers and staff of the SPH was invaluable.

“Even the program director would give me advice, which is rare, as the senior staff are so busy. And the lecturers and teachers were always helpful.”

During his degree, Rohan also became a ����logo Ambassador for the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion program. This role further cemented Rohan’s love for working with youth in communities experiencing disadvantage.

“I got to do presentations in low SES schools, talking about ����logo’s Gateway program. It was really great, reaching kids who are probably going to be the first in their family to attend university. I’d explain the program and how to get into university, and give them a contact – someone they knew at university, because most of them wouldn’t have known anyone there. I even got to go back to the NSW central west, where I grew up. That was really fun.”

To finish out his degree, Rohan undertook an internship through The Kirby Institute. And he never imagined the direction it would take him.

“I thought I’d come out of the degree with a focus on some kind of public health sport initiatives and promotion, around non-communicable disease. But I decided to undertake a research project through the internship pathway, because I had no research experience at all – it drew me outside what I’d known or thought of getting into. I figured I should try everything before getting into a specific field.”

His internship involved a writing a watching brief paper on the bubonic plague in Mongolia. He pulled together a rundown of the current outbreak in that country, using the tools available at The Kirby Institute to track the outbreak. The project included developing summaries for health workers on the ground, supporting them in diagnosing this disease early, as symptoms are common to a number of other conditions.

It provided guidance on identifying causes of, and treatments for, bubonic plague outbreaks. His work also covered information on how to avoid future outbreaks.

Rohan found the research work challenging, but a great experience, from which he learned a lot about research, and public health challenges in developing countries.

He realised that research and academia can open up a lot more options for engaging his passion for improving public health. And as a result, Rohan now has his first job in a research organisation.

Following graduation, he began working with The George Institute for Global Health. He’s excited to be supporting researchers and to have the opportunity to learn more about the process of international research. He’s still not sure where he’ll end up, but his BIPH, with his internship and the research experience he gained through it, were instrumental in securing his current position.

“The George Institute is a research partner for ����logo. I’m an admin assistant, supporting three of the project teams.  The George Institute is really reputable and I’m really happy. I’ve been here a month, met some cool people and some professors in their fields doing high level research. It’s so great to have secured this role.”