Ruby Tukia is off to Auckland after graduating with a Bachelor of Dental Surgery on Saturday.
What do you get when you cross a pharmacist, a lawyer, an accountant, a carpenter, an emergency doctor, an anesthetist, a biomedical scientist, an officer of the New Zealand Defence Force and a dentist?
Give up? It’s the Tukia whanau, including Ruby who claimed the dentist title when she graduated with a Bachelor of Dental Surgery with credit from Otago on Saturday.
As the ninth child in a family of 11, Ruby jokes that her siblings had already taken her other career preferences, so dental felt like the right choice.
Her journey is rooted in three key pillars: faith, family, and education.
At an early age, Ruby’s family moved to Mount Roskill, Auckland after her father saw the opportunities for a better lifestyle and education in Aotearoa.
"I think the biggest thing, like other Pacific families, was the studying aspect. If you wanted your child to have decent health care or tertiary opportunities, your parents had to be on some type of visa. My Dad saw the study environment here and knew it was better than most countries,” Ruby says.
Her Father, a pharmacist, encouraged his children to pursue careers in healthcare – while seven of them have and one more enters Otago medical school next year, the other three took different, but still reputable paths.
Her interest in dentistry was “driven by the lack of knowledge of it”.
“My initial interest in dentistry was driven by the lack of knowledge of it and that's a discussion that I had with my parents, we did not know a lot of the industry because there is not really a big push in Tonga.
“So, my brothers and I sat down with my parents and the laid-out options were, Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmacy. I then made the decision that I would try a Bachelor of Oral Health to test the waters then I'll know whether to pursue Dentistry after my three years.”
Ruby Tukia addresses the crowd at the Pacific graduation breakfast on Saturday.
Her Mum has kept the family “humble” and reminded them the “key to everything is faith in God”.
"The major reason why this is possible is praying, God, and having these degrees mean nothing unless you have God in play."
Her upbringing has also ensured Ruby is no stranger to hard work.
“Most of my siblings went to Tonga High, but I went to Queen Salote. My parents, being strong in their religion, wanted at least one of us to attend that school, so, me and my two younger brothers went to Queen Salote and Toloa – we were the guinea pigs,” she jokes.
“Until you grow up in the Islands, you will never have the same experience of how hard it truly is. We would go into the bush, plant our own kumala (kumara) —it wasn’t easy. My Dad made sure we experienced these realities so that we would know what hard work really is.”
It was working in Oamaru for a short time that confirmed her dentistry pathway.
“I had no idea how large the Pacific population was in this rural area.
“An interaction when greeting an elderly woman in the waiting room of the clinic with ‘mālō e lelei’ completely changed the trajectory of our session and before I began her examination, she opened it up with a prayer, it was an experience that I cannot put into words, it was just different.”
Ruby is contracted to work in Auckland for 2025 and plans to expand her experience to rural areas and then eventually, volunteering in Tonga – giving back to the communities that helped raise her.
“It’s cool because Queen Salote and Toloa have a dental clinic so I would like to volunteer at there, I am not the greatest candidate but even if it’s just to mop the floors or clean the windows, I’ll be there.”