Former Miss Samoa 1999-2000, Siiliili Dr Taralina Gae’e-Atefi, is the newly appointed Head of School of the School of Medicine at our National University of Samoa.

She is a medical graduate from the Pacific’s longest-serving Institution in medical education, the Fiji School of Medicine.

Dr Gae’e’s primary and secondary school years began at Vaimoso Primary School, Apia Infants, Apia Primary and Leififi Intermediate School. She later attended Samoa College and joined the graduating Foundation UPY class of 1995, with an awarded scholarship for a double major Science degree in Macromolecular and Cellular Biochemistry and Biological Sciences, at Griffith University, Australia, and later a Masters in Medical Research at the same institute.

She returned home and worked as a lab technician at the TTM Diagnostics and Pathology lab under the guidance and steady mentorship of Otago-trained first Samoan and first Pacific Islander pathologist and Fiji School of Medicine, MBBS Gold Medalist, the late Afioga Dr Faleniu Asaua.

Medical education, according to Dr Gae’e does not only continue at medical school. It starts at home, parents, more so the mother, as the first educator of the child and student. The ethics and practice of medicine (or any profession) begin from this time, as parents instil values, morals and ideals in the child and the student, which should centre first around.

Dr Gae’e believes that when these founding principles are there in a medical student, all else, including scholarship and the knowledge in the sciences of medicine, will inherently fall in place.

Dr Gae’e said she is humbled to receive this role and is excited and optimistic that she will continue the precious works already paved by those before her. She gives tribute to all her teachers and mentors in the past, including her first educator, her mother.

Dr Gae’e is the first medical doctor in Samoa, the Pacific and Oceania to specialise in Transcultural and Positive Psychotherapy, a much-needed specialist field in mental health in Samoa and the Pacific. Dr Gae’e continues ongoing training in London, UK, alongside other areas of interest and training in plant medicine, Eastern systems of health, and natural and indigenous medicine. She hopes for a mainstream integrative approach to health in the future.