Look and listen – the art of medicine Dr Jennie Connaughton has been practising for more than four decades and has now found the kind of medicine that’s closest to her heart.
She tells Ara Jansen how she got there. It was a nine-year-old girl who did it. She is entirely to blame – in the best possible way – for setting Dr Jennie Connaughton on the path which has led her to practising medicine with the principles and attitudes which resonate most loudly with her soul. The child in question had been living in an Indian shelter for homeless girls for almost two years when the Perth doctor met and spoke to her in 2008. “I asked her what life on the street had been like and what coming to the shelter had meant to her,” Jennie remembers. “She turned on like a little button explaining how much better and safer her life was. It felt like she had given me a job, to support the group whose shelter had given her safety and security.” Up until that point, the Perth GP had a long history of practising with a focus on women’s health. While there was little doubt she had found her niche, Jennie says it took her much longer to discover a way to work in medicine which felt most naturally aligned with her beliefs. A life-long love for culture and language has led Jennie to understand that her work is more than diagnosing an ailment. She sees communicating effectively with people from different cultural and language groups being just as important. At her core, she loves the stories as much as the science. “When I work with people with cultural differences, I have to pay close attention to what someone means with their words and how 6 | MAY 2020
I say things,” she says. “When someone has lived a more traditional life, as a western-trained doctor, it can be a challenge to be aware of what’s really important to them and how to make the relationship work.” When she turned 50 in 2003, Jennie decided to stop metropolitan GP work, move to Sydney and begin doing locum work in rural and remote Australia.
Power of culture “I was learning a lot and it was affecting me greatly. I was working with people who spoke many languages and was learning so much about medicine, about Australia and about Aboriginal culture. That made me feel very differently about doing medicine. I felt very privileged. “When I was young, I was really interested in languages and other cultures. I was lucky enough to be able to take time off medicine and travel a lot. At the time, the common image of a doctor was very much a young white male. While I knew that wasn’t correct, it had a strong effect for a long time. “During medical school, we only saw a limited view of what being a doctor could be. I was never interested in running the business of a medical practice. It took a while to realise there are a million possible ways to do medicine. That’s the luxury of it – we can do so many different things and be so many different kinds of doctor.” MEDICAL FORUM | WOMEN 'S HEALTH ISSUE
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