Dr Annette Holian has always been a trailblazer in orthopaedics, so it’s fitting that she is now the first female president of the Australian Orthopaedics Association in its 85-year history.

Back in 1986, Dr Holian and one other female doctor became the first female surgeons to start the association’s current training program.

Now, she intends to use her experiences over the past 35 years to smooth the path for all candidates who are not “tall white males”.

“I never really felt that I fitted in,” she told 6minutes, adding that conversations when she first started in the field were often dominated by traditionally male topics, such as Australian rules football “and who’d had a groin strain at the weekend”.