TARTAN
NEWS
Jenny Cox (1956) Jenny is proof that it is never too late to learn. She has recently graduated from Murdoch University at the age of 81. Jenny graduated with a Bachelor Arts — Australian Aboriginal Studies, receiving her certificate via a special ceremony in her home suburb of Rockingham in March this year. Jenny Cox with her grandchildren Jack, Molly and Isobel McCarthy, Rebecca Gunzburg (2019) and Alexandra Cox.
traveled to the UK to work. HIV and AIDS was at the forefront of the 80s and early 90s and her preclinical and clinical years were heavily influenced by the myriad of immuno-compromised conditions that accompanied this disease prior to the sophisticated medications we have available today. Maryellen expressed that working on the early HIV wards at St Thomas’ in London was both fascinating medically and culturally.
Dr Maryellen Yencken (1982) In 1979, Maryellen commenced Year 9 boarding at PLC and graduated in 1982. Home was the family’s merino sheep farm closeted in the tight knit farming community of Kojonup. Much of her childhood was spent free roaming and honing her observation skills of the natural world whilst her three older siblings were away at boarding school. “The early 80s was yet to be politically correct which possibly gave way to a naive innocence and freedom that allowed us as students at PLC to not contemplate nor consider for a second any boundaries that may impede the subjects we chose or the professions we would pursue. Evident by the seven other PLC girls who graduated alongside me completing our medical degrees in 1988. Our graduation photo gracing the front page of the West Australian,” Maryellen said. After completing her intern year at Royal Perth Hospital, Maryellen
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Returning to Perth, Maryellen spent a year as a medical registrar at Fremantle Hospital refining her medical skills before completing her FRACGP and entering General Practice. Over the course of these years, she spent time as a student doctor with the Flying Doctors out of Dampier and seeing much of the red earth of the Kimberly’s from the air and travelling to remote aboriginal communities. Maryellen also worked in the rural town of Busselton for six months along with spending time travelling to India, Pakistan, driving and camping through the United States and much of Europe. As well as working as a general practitioner, she spent five years working at the Sexual Assault Resource Centre (SARC) in forensic medicine, representing clients as an expert witness in the legal system. Maryellen was inaugurated as a member of the College of Legal Medicine as a result of this forensic work. Creativity comes in many forms and in her private life she has recreated the childhood connection to the land by creating a large vegetable garden at her coastal home, with her husband
Simon and two young adult sons. The family lives with six resident hens, her dog Occy and cat Rodger. From a medical perspective, creating her own medical practice along with her two business partners has been a work in progress for the past 21 years. Maryellen became a partner just after her first child was born and the practice has grown from three doctors to 14 with around 30 staff in total servicing the Bicton, Palmyra and East Fremantle areas where they all aspire to creating a kind, family style general practice whilst practicing excellent medicine.
