AMA VICDOC Autumn 2024 - Magazine - Page 48
Chris received an email
W hen
informing her that she was the
recipient of a Medal of the Order of
Australia, she thought it was spam.
“I’m flabbergasted that someone’s
thought I’ve done such a good job and
decided to nominate me. It was very
unexpected – in fact, I thought it was
spam and nearly deleted the email!
GPs work hard and do a lot of
the bread-and-butter care for the
community, so it’s lovely we’re getting
recognised in this way,” says Chris,
who turns 70 next year.
The award recognises an individual’s
excellence, achievement or meritorious
service and contribution to society.
And Chris has done this in spades
– so many, in fact, that the award
specifically recognises her services
‘through various roles’.
Those roles include 40 years in
general practice in Yarraville, being a
medical educator, working to support
our GP training practices and their
supervisors. Chris also spent 11 years as
a sessional medical officer at Western
Hospital’s Drug and Alcohol Service
and worked at the Dame Phyllis Frost
Correctional Centre. She also spent
eight years as a sessional medical
officer in the Gestational Diabetes
Antenatal Clinic at Sunshine Hospital.
Chris is also an Honorary
Senior Fellow in the University of
Melbourne’s Department of General
Practice and Primary Care, has been
a doctor on call for the Victorian
Doctors’ Health Program, and has been
active writing letters through Amnesty
International Human Rights since
1981. She has also founded a local
Amnesty International group.
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Chris was inspired to become a GP
by a lifelong fascination with the human
body and says general practice has been
her great love.
“To this day I retain an absolute
scientific fascination with the human
body – with its physiology and how its
systems work. And I’ve always loved the
human contact and the engagement with
families and knowing people over long
periods of time that comes with being a
community GP.”
“I still meet registrars that I worked
with as far back as 1987, who are now
fantastic GPs. That was in what was
then called the Family Medicine
Program. It was really a formal training
program for doctors for general practice.
I would visit them and observe their
consultations for half a day and offer
feedback. I visited so many practices
and got to know so many registrars
and their supervisors.”
In 1995, Chris became involved in
addiction medicine.
“There have always been substance
use and abuse problems in our
communities, but at that time in
Footscray, heroin was becoming a real
problem. Western Hospital had just set
up its Drug and Alcohol Service, so I
went and visited them. They persuaded
me to do the training to prescribe
methadone, and then they offered
me a job,” says Chris.
“It was a great time. I met people
on the fringes, who had often had
a raw deal from life. They could be
very difficult; sometimes drug seekers’
behaviours were very unpleasant, but
it helped me to see the behaviours as
survival tactics, and signs of someone in
trouble. I hope I made some difference.”
