As a young girl growing up in Tonga, Dr Amelia Latu Afuha'amango Tuipulotu lived only two minutes' walk from the hospital she would eventually lead.
Her relatives from Tonga's outer islands would travel to the capital Nuku'alofa and stay with her family to access specialist healthcare at Vaiola Hospital, the only tertiary hospital in the country.
"In our small, poor home, they came to live with us because it's very expensive to go to and from where they live and it was very far," Afuha'amango Tuipulotu said.
It was on those early hospital visits where Tonga's future health minister became "intrigued".
"I used to see people in pain and suffering, and children crying, and I used to say to myself — 'I need to do something about that in the future'."
Afuha'amango Tuipulotu is now the most senior nurse in the world at age 51.
She became the Chief Nursing Officer of the World Health Organization in late 2022, a role which saw Afuha'amango Tuipulotu move with her husband and two kids from tropical Tonga to Geneva, Switzerland, over 17,000kms away.
"Coming here in January, I was shocked with the cold. I was almost frozen," she said.
Afuha'amango Tuipulotu admits her teenagers are adapting to their new lives in the Geneva, a global hub for diplomacy, faster than she is. They have already joined the local rugby team and have made friends in the Pasifika and African communities.
While the alpine conditions may take some time getting used to, Afuha'amango Tuipulotu has a track record of perseverance.
Her rise to the upper echelons of international leadership is just the latest peak in a remarkable career spanning clinical nursing, hospital management and politics, with several pioneering moments dotted in between.