From Matangi Tonga Magazine Vol. 15, no. 3, September 2000.

Dr Heather Leslie, Assistant Professor with the Department of Anthropology, University of Alberta, Canada, will be carrying research in Tonga during the next six years for a book on the history of the medical profession in Tonga.

Heather came to Tonga last year to do some preliminary work, and acquired permission from Cabinet to carry out her research.

She returned to Canada and secured a sponsorship, and can now start her research.  

Heather said she had interviewed some of the first group of Tongan students who attended the Fiji Medical School, including Sione Posesi Fanua. She has also interviewed Siaosi Niumeitolu. Heather said she was interested in the life story of these doctors, “why they were picked? What was expected from them when they returned from Fiji?”

Heather also wanted to explore the fact that health, hygiene and western medicine were tools of the colonial power, “but interestingly the late Queen Salote was a strong supporter for the establishment of the Central Medical School.”

Heather has done other research work on Tonga, and in 1991 she wrote a dissertation on what Tongan mothers did to make their children healthy Tongans.