LUMEN Summer 2019 - Flipbook - Page 36
Dr Yu
makes X
her mark
Escaping Mao’s Cultural Revolution to
pioneer her own in genetic pathology.
STORY BY TUSHA BHATIA
T
error and tragedy pathed
the way for Dr Sui Yu to
become Australia’s first
female genetic pathologist.
From her ninth floor office in the
Women’s and Children’s hospital, the
picturesque view Dr Yu now enjoys is
far from the atrocities she experienced
growing up in China during Chairman
Mao’s Cultural Revolution.
“The discrimination I experienced
in China was unbearable so I made
the decision to leave. I am very
grateful that I built my career and
my life in a lovely country like
Australia. Sometimes adversities
can lead to something very good,
34
THE UNIVERSITY OF ADELAIDE
you just never know.”
And something good did happen.
Dr Yu became a pioneer in genetic
pathology, a field on the cutting edge
of medicine where genetic diseases
are diagnosed by testing patient
samples for DNA abnormalities.
As Head of the Department of
Cytogenetics and Molecular
Genetics at Women's and Children's
hospital Dr Yu works full-time and
then some. Her team focuses on
identifying the genetic causes for
paediatric and reproductive related
disorders and, for couples who
have trouble conceiving, screening
chromosomes and DNA for subtle
abnormalities for children with
intellectual disability.
“We provide a high quality service
to clinicians and to the patients. As
a genetic pathologist, my passion
is service quality, clinical risk
management and training the next
generation of genetic pathologists,”
said Dr Yu.
Sitting in her office, surrounded by
case files, research papers and a map of
the human genome, Dr Yu is confident
and in her element. But the journey
to the top of her profession was long,
hard and marked with torment.
The Cultural Revolution took Dr
Yu’s parents from her. The pseudomedical Chicken Blood Treatment
which injected rooster blood into
patients and was endorsed by the
Communist Party of China, was the
likely cause of Dr Yu’s mother’s death.
Her father was falsely accused of
being an anti-revolutionary and
sentenced to life imprisonment.
