A doctor with ancestral links to Fasi Moe Afi and Kolofo’ou has just been appointed as a Neurologist/ Neurology Interventionalist at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney.
Hugh Stephen Winters, who will take up the position later this year, is the grandson through his mother Lu’isa of Milika Vaka née Vi and Tēvita Kaliopasi Vaka.
Dr Winters started school at Otahuhu Primary and then went on to De La Salle College in South Auckland.
From there he attended Auckland University Medical School through the Māori and Pacific Admission Scheme and studied medicine.
During his time as a Junior Doctor at Middlemore Hospital he discovered his niche while working with stroke patients.
He enrolled in the neurology programme offered by the New South Wales Health system.
During his training he met and married his wife Maggie who is a paediatrician.
He qualified as neurologist in Australia in 2016 and the following year went to the United States to undertake a fellowship at Erlanger Healthcare in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in neuro-interventional medicine.
This procedure involves removing blood clots in the brain to prevent strokes through the guidance of radiology.
