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After a 45-year career in medicine, spent mostly as a GP on the Hibiscus Coast, Dr Aideen Hawkins has decided it is time to hang up her stethoscope.
“I’m leaving while I still love what I do,” she says. “It’s been a great career, but I’m ready for a change.”
Originally from England, Dr Hawkins graduated from the University of Birmingham where she met and married Kiwi medical student, David Hawkins.
A year after graduating, the couple returned to NZ and Aideen worked in a number of Auckland hospitals covering the emergency rooms, obstetrics and geriatrics.
The couple bought Ray Gibson’s practice, located in the old Whangaparaoa shops, in 1975. Later, they were among the first tenants to move into the mall. Aideen joined the Whangaparaoa Medical Centre, across the road from the mall, when she and David separated.
“There were four doctors covering the entire Hibiscus Coast when we came here – two in Orewa and two in Whangaparaoa. We all did our own on-call, which meant working a whole weekend fairly regularly. The only equipment a doctor needed then was a couch, stethoscope and auriscope, so David and I used to see people in a room at our house.
“Our children got used to phone calls and people coming to the house at all hours of the day and night. It was a matter of fitting in the work around the washing, making the dinner and looking after the children. People expected a lot of their doctor – it was nothing to get a call in the middle of the night from someone whose baby wouldn’t sleep!”
Dr Hawkins says she has always felt privileged to share in some of her patients’ most intimate life experiences, in terms of living and dying.
“People put such faith and trust in you, and I have relationships with families now that span five generations.”
Dr Hawkins says patients have changed over the years and simply following “doctors orders” is no longer the norm. People are generally better informed about their health, expecting the doctor to explain and discuss the issues, but ultimately, seeing themselves as the decision-maker. She thinks the change is a positive one, but her pet hate is the use of Dr Google to self-diagnose.
“Inevitably, people leap to the conclusion that they have the rarest and most unusual disease, which is seldom the case.”
And while she supports the move towards preventative medicine, she says it can lead to increased, and often unnecessary, anxiety.
“GPs are expected to establish risk factors but in order to do this, it’s necessary to run tests and it’s the test that can cause the anxiety.”
As the mother of four children and the grandmother of five, Dr Hawkins believes mothers today can be overwhelmed by the amount of information available.
“Plus there are the ‘baby police’ telling them what they should and shouldn’t do. Books and the internet have taken the place of the commonsense support that mothers used to get from their families.
“I’ve had occasions when I’ve given a young mother some advice to be then told, ‘but that’s not what it says in the book!’ Every baby is an individual and you can’t learn about your baby from a book.
“As I head towards retirement at break-neck speed, I realise that the best job I ever had was as a mother.”
Apart from a European river cruise and six weeks in England with family, Dr Hawkins says her retirement plans aren’t set in stone.
“All I know is that whatever I decide to do, I will be doing it in a leisurely way. I’m looking forward to perhaps joining a reading group that meets during the day, continuing my regular correspondence with my grandchildren in the UK and maybe volunteering to teach English to migrants.”
