Ifereimi Waqainabete

After being awarded the Rowan Nicks scholar award in 2003,[1] Dr Waqainabete moved with his family to New Zealand and worked in the position of senior registrar in General surgery at the Palmerston North hospital to gain further experience in surgery.

He moved back to Fiji to work for few years, then later returned to Christchurch, New Zealand as an Upper GI and Hepatobiliary fellow at Christchurch hospital in 2012. The following year he worked as Breast and Endocrine fellow at Christchurch hospital in 2013.

On his return to Fiji for the second time from New Zealand, Dr Waqainabete commenced work back in CWM hospital as a consultant surgeon. Soon after he joined the Fiji National University College of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences department of Surgery as Associate Professor in Surgery.[2] It is usual for an FNU appointed surgeon to provide surgical services to the hospital as part of the agreement between FNU and Ministry of Health. He is the current the Head of Department of Surgery, Anaesthesia and Women's Health in FNU.[3]

Dr Waqainabete is the current President of the Fiji Medical Association and has been re-elected several times in the past.

In 2000, as the FMA president, the FMA executives petitioned for success increase in on-call allowances. It was common for doctors to work 24 hours straight on call and continue to work the next day with an allowance of only $10 on top of their basic salary.

in 2016, as the President of the FMA, Dr Waqainabete together with the FMA executives petitioned for and successfully persuaded the Fiji First Government to increase salary for all doctors in Fiji by 50-100%.[4] This was passed in the 2016 budget and implemented immediately. Prior to this doctors in Fiji were underpaid and frequently worked many hours over the 76 hours per fortnight without compensation.[5] Fiji constantly suffered from an exodus of highly trained medical professional leaving to work in New Zealand and Australia, citing remuneration as one of the major factors.[6]

Having experienced the better work conditions of doctors in New Zealand, he is an advocate on safety, well being and preventing burnout of doctors in Fiji.[7][8]

In 2018, at the combined GSA/PISA meeting, the Pacific Islands Surgeon Association held its Annual General Meeting (AGM) and elected the board of executives. Dr Waqainabete was elected as the President of the Pacific Island Surgeons Association, taking over from Lord Viliame Tangi, Chief General Surgeon of Tonga.

At the AGM, surgeons from East Timor and Papua New Guinea also expressed interest in joining PISA which was welcomed by current members.

In his current academic and surgical capacity, Dr Waqainabete[9] maintains close relations with the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons[10] a non-profit body that maintains surgical training standards in Australia and New Zealand as well and supports global health initiatives.[11]

The continuing relations led to a historic combined General Surgeons Association Australia meeting with the Pacific Island Surgeons Association in Denarau, Fiji 2018 and was attended by over 340 surgeons and trainee surgeons from Australasia and the Pacific.

In 2003 Dr Waqainabete was awarded the Rowan Nicks Pacific Island Scholar award by the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons.[12]

Dr Waqainabete supports training of Fijian and Pacific women in surgery. During his tenure at CWM as General surgeon and Medical Superintednant, he supported the first three cohort of women in surgery get selected into the Masters of Surgery training program and they have gone to successfully complete the training program to becoming Fiji first group of female surgeons to complete the training program. All three females successfully completed general surgery training and are now branching out into surgical subspecialties in Peadiatric Surgery (Dr Annette Chang), Plastic surgery (Dr Rachna Ram) and ENT (Dr Fane Lord). Since then, more women have joined the surgical training program in Fiji, leading to the first combined sub-meeting of Pacific Women in Surgery and Royal Australasian College of Surgeon's women in surgery delegates at the GSA//PISA[13] meeting in Denarau, Fiji 2018.

Dr Waqainabate believes in equality regardless of race, gender or privilege. He has said 'As a surgeon I realised that on the inside we are all the same. There is no Itaukei Liver or IndoFijian Liver. We are all the same', referring to the longstanding racial issues in Fiji. He also states that he realises that the Itaukei lands are protected forever.