A senior Hamilton doctor with no plans to retire has urged the best medical students to become GPs , amid a serious shortage in the field. Login or signup to continue reading When Dr Marie-Anne Hockings was a student, "they used to say you shouldn't train girls to do medicine because they'd just go off and have babies". The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners said last November that three in 10 GPs intend to retire by 2028.
Dr Hockings, 68, who has been a doctor for 46 years, said "we are desperately in need of more GPs ". As well as being a GP, Dr Hockings is a senior lecturer at the University of Newcastle. She's been teaching students for more than 40 years.
"Years ago it was about showing them you could have a great medical career as a woman," she said. "Nowadays that's not so much of an issue. It's more trying to point out that you can have a great career as a GP.
"I'm trying to encourage the best students to do general practice." Dr Hockings said being a GP was the field in which "you could have the biggest impact on people's lives". "You share long-term meaningful relationships with diverse people, who you might never normally meet," she said.
"It gives you a sense of perspective." For a decade, she delivered babies as a GP obstetrician at John Hunter Hospital. "Now those babies are grown up and I'm seeing them as parents," she said.
"The people who were middle-aged when I started are now elderly. It gives a lovely sense of time and connection." Dr Hockin.