Brisbane-based GP, Dr Jo Skinner has contributed this wonderful insight on how she has combined her work as a GP with her writing and release of her debut novel “The Truth About My Daughter“. Thank you for sharing Dr Skinner.
My GP Writing Journey
I always enjoyed English and humanities at school and these were the subjects where I did well. When asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I replied that I wanted to be a writer. In early high school, I became very unwell, was diagnosed with rheumatic fever, and admitted to hospital. My diagnosis was complicated by Syndenham’s chorea, and I ended up missing an entire term of school. This experience prompted me to consider medicine as a career which required a sharp shift in focus to science and maths-based subjects.
The years completing my medical degree were long and hard as I had to support myself financially by working on weekends and some evenings. After graduation, I signed up to do the rural stream and moved frequently. I gained my fellowship and went on to complete a diploma of obstetrics and gynaecology before I married and had three children in quick succession. My life was very full, so dreams of writing were shelved for a long time.
The urge to write never left me and in 2018, my husband encouraged me to sign up for my first online creative writing course with The Writers Studio in Sydney. I absolutely loved it and signed up for further courses and started sending some of my stories to competitions. It was such a thrill when some of them were shortlisted or won and were included in anthologies. I also started writing freelance articles about medical issues and these are regularly published in women’s magazines and Medicine Today.
My dream was to write a novel and I had several ideas that had been marinating in my imagination for a long time.
When my novel, The Truth about My Daughter, came second in the Hawkeye Unpublished Manuscript Development award, I couldn’t believe it. I will never forget the phone call from the publisher, Carolyn Martinez, offering me a trade publishing contract. After that phone call, I just wanted to go out into the waiting room and shout the news to the patients sitting there.
My novel was published on 1 October 2024, and I had a wonderful book launch at the much-loved independent Brisbane bookshop, Avid Reader, which was attended by many of my colleagues, friends, and other writers. A week later I was offered another publishing contract for my novel, A World of Silence.
Some of my patients and colleagues have asked me if I plan to retire from medicine now that I am writing novels, but so many of my ideas come from some snippet a patient has shared with me in a consultation. As a GP, I am in the privileged position to be paid to listen to people’s stories and I often get to know several generations of the one family giving me an intimate knowledge of their social context. My medical practice does inform much of my writing.
One of the most rewarding aspects of having my book published and out in the world is people giving me feedback about the parts of the novel that really resonated with them. It is fascinating what others see in your work.
I did not plan it, but my novel does touch on many issues that are all in a day’s work for a GP – dysfunctional families, termination of pregnancy, end of life care, infertility, cancer and dealing with SARS CoV2. My neighbour lost their best friend to bowel cancer and told me that the part of my novel dealing with the challenges of attending hospital for cancer treatment during the pandemic really touched him as it reflected his friend’s experience, while another writer sent me a message about her own struggles with fertility resulting in the use of a donor egg.
I am so grateful that I have had the opportunity not only to work as a GP all over Australia, but that I did succumb to my urge to write. It has without doubt made me a more empathic and better GP. Working with a cast of characters really enables you to see complex situations from other points of view. It has also nudged me to practice narrative medicine, to listen deeply and take time to see what a patient’s unspoken agenda is.
If I had to give advice to my younger self, it would be, don’t grow up – keep exploring and finding new challenges and never ignore the urge to pursue something creative, however crazy it might seem.
Note – I have an article in the September edition of Medicine Today – First Do No Harm. I also have an article called A Good Death in the October issue of MiNDFOOD magazine and another about Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder in the November edition. My novel, The Truth about My Daughter is available from Hawkeye Publishing and on Amazon and at selected bookstores.
By Dr Johanna Skinner
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