Brooklyn Whitmore may have a long road ahead - but Logan Hospital is helping her take the first steps.
Last month, the 20-year-old university student joined the psychology department at Logan Hospital as part of an Indigenous cadetship where she will shadow local Allied Health staff and get first hand clinical exposure.
"So far I've shadowed social work, health care workers, HLOs, dieticians; so basically making my way around the multi-disciplinary teams to see how the hospital systems work," Ms Whitmore said
"I was out an Inala Indigenous Clinic last year; this is the second year I've been doing the cadetship; I got to work in community last year and see how that side of the system works and then this year I'm more mainstream."
The former Gympie resident is currently in her third year of a double degree in psychology and criminology and already has plans to tackle honours and, a masters in clinical psychology.
Her overall aim is to bolster mental health services in regional areas where she says there is mistrust in the current system.
"When I finish my psychology degree I know I want to work purely community (sic) and I want to work with mob," she said.
"That's been my passion my whole entire life, so once I get my degree,I am qualified and I have all my experience - my long term goal is to create my own multi-disciplinary team and take that out to rural areas... so bringing the access to them to close that gap."
Ms Whitmore flagged access as one of the major challenges facing metal health care in rural areas.
"I grew up in a lot of rural communities and (there is) mistrust in the system," she said.
"So when mob are getting that access the mistrust is a very large barrier.
"And just overall, education, talking about it. There's a lot of shame that comes with talking about mental health - growing up it wasn't spoken about at all and yet we were losing so many people to suicide."
Ms Whitmore said a lot of communities take a holistic approach to healing such as ceremonies and 'song and dance'.
"It's different the way our mob heal, that doesn't neccesarily fit into what the mainstream medical (industry) would say," she said.
"And just coming in and feeling accepted and culturally safe is a big issue that needs to be looked at."
Ms Whitmore will be at Logan Hospital for six weeks as part of the cadetship.