Lucy O’Hagan entered Otago Medical School in the first class to be half female and graduated in the year of the Cartwright Inquiry. She has studied the sociology, anthropology and philosophy of medicine, as well as narrative practice and has been a rata hauora/general practitioner for over 30 years. She currently works at Oratoa Cannons Creek in East Porirua in a predominantly Māori/Pasifika practice owned by Ngāti Toa Rangatira. She is a well-known GP writer, speaker and performer who has written plays, given addresses and performances at conferences and written a monthly column for New Zealand Doctor Rata Aotearoa since 2017. In 2024 she recorded stories and reflections she had written during the pandemic. Waiting for Covid is available on podcast platforms. Lucy talks to NZ Booklovers.
You’ve been writing a column for many years in NZ Doctor magazine, but extending out into a book was of quite another order. Which is harder — working as a GP or writing a book?
Writing a book and being a GP are both hard, and both rewarding in different ways. Both are crafts that take a long time to learn. I didn’t start out to write a book, so it has been probably a 10-year project. Being a GP is hard these days and when we are under pressure it’s easy to take the easy way out, write a prescription, send a referral knowing the person will not be seen. But we all want to do work that is meaningful, so I think we have to stick to our kaupapa: What story are we in, what is important, what are our human values?
It’s certainly true that my work as a GP informs the writing but also the writing helps me understand my work as a GP. I started by doing reflective writing as a way of making sense of the complex and distressing stories I had been given by patients. Then I realised what incredible stories they were and often stories that are not heard.
Read the full interview at NZ Booklovers here.
