Mother-daughter doctor duo

Dr Annabelle Chalk remembers catching the train and walking to her mum’s work at the Royal Brisbane Women’s Hospital after school and watching Keeping Up Appearances with the elderly patients. She remembers being a part of medical studies, hearing her mum dictate letters at night, playing with medical models as toys and being told all about confidentiality after overhearing phone calls in the car on the way home. 

Years later, she’s a psychiatry registrar, hoping to practice geriatric psychiatry. Her mum is Dr Catherine Yelland PSM, a renowned geriatrician and general physician at the Redcliffe Hospital. Dr Yelland remembers growing up with all things medical with her GP mum, Margaret Yelland, and her neurosurgeon dad, John Yelland. 

Just in case there was a shortage of doctors in the family, Dr Yelland married a doctor - her late husband, Dr Jonathan Chalk, was a neurologist. Dr Annabelle Chalk is married to Isaac Tranter, a general practitioner. Let’s not forget that Dr Yelland has two other children, Tim, a PHO at The Prince Charles Hospital and Emily, who branched out and studied law instead. 

Dr Yelland, when asked if she considered medicine a vocation, disagreed.

“No, I don't think you're born to it. I think, if you grow up in a medical family, you understand it, understand the demands it makes, you understand it's a bit all-consuming, but it shouldn't be. No, it's engrossing, but it shouldn't be all-consuming,” she said.  

Dr Chalk said she never felt like she was expected to study medicine. 

“If it’s something that you have some familiarity with or some understanding of, then it seems like an appealing job. 

“I think that naturally, if you hear a lot about something and it's a discussion that other people in your family are having and something that you're familiar with, then maybe that's naturally something that you would consider,” she said. 

The doctors admit that it’s handy to have a medical family when you have a case that needs some extra perspective. 

“We talk about cases all the time. It’s great to debrief with someone who know what you’re talking about,” said Dr Chalk. 

Medicine isn’t known to be the most family-friendly occupation. Dr Yelland recalls on the difficulties her mother faced compared to her own child-rearing years. 

“Her career had taken very much a backseat to my father's, partly because they had five children. He was always on call at that time. 

“She stopped working for a few years and then she went back part-time doing the sort of jobs that a medical officer could do. When the children were older, there was the Family Medicine Program, where she reskilled to get back into it,” said Dr Yelland. 

“It was harder. Remember, childcare arrangements were pretty difficult. And, it was only when childcare centres and various other, the family daycare program and so on, came in, that it was easier. Otherwise, it was all sort of private arrangements, which is what my mother did, we had a housekeeper. And then, of course, my children were all in childcare.” 

“Men are also now expected to have a bigger role and a more serious role in the child caring. Not just, "I'll do it if it fits in around everything else," but actually being committed to it. It's something the workplace has to work around. It isn't just the women that they're accommodating, it's the carers.

“Both genders have lives outside medicine, in a way that 50 or more years ago, the men were constantly above and the women were at home. It was different,” said Dr Yelland. 
Dr Chalk sees the main difference in her generation as the flexibility. 

“Medicine as a career has, overall, got more options. It's a more flexible job. People are more creative with the types of jobs that they do with a medical degree,” said Dr Chalk.  

“I think that's made it better for everyone. And anything that's better for women is better for everybody. 

“The creativity and the ways that people have used their medical degrees is much greater than was ever possible, probably because of the internet and our capacity to travel and capacity to see what other people are doing.

“The focus on medicine being your whole life and your whole reason for being has probably really changed and the expectation for everybody, that their lifestyle is also important, is probably part of the reason that it's better for everyone and more flexible.