.
“Snake bites, leprosy, tuberculosis, malnutrition, amoebiasis,
The now retired 74-year-old tells tales of his time in Nepal, along with other stories from a life in medicine, in his new memoir What Was I Thinking? which he describes as “a scrapbook of memories”.
In his third year at medical school, he failed “contraception practical” and his then girlfriend Marion fell pregnant, he says.
After a fraught moment plucking up the courage to tell his mother-in-law the news over a game of scrabble, he says the two were delighted to marry and start a family so early.
“We just planned our whole wedding ourselves, and we made it very much our own thing. We wrote all our own words, and we designed a very unconventional wedding outfit – we’re sort of in the hippie days.”
He and Marion had an unshakeable belief that things would work out, he says.
“We just had this outrageous self-confidence that, sure, we were going to be very, very poor as a third-year medical student with another three years to go, but we just had this confidence that we would face any challenge, and love would get us through.”
The hospital in Tansen, Nepal.
Greg Judkins
That resilience paid off in Nepal, he says.
“As my eldest daughter said, there’s always an imperfect trade-off between positives and negatives and doing something like that. There are certainly risks involved, there are certainly horizon-expanding opportunities, and you don’t always get it right.
“We were lucky we had no major issues. Our youngest had chronic giardia infection, gastroenteritis, going on for months and months and was failing to gain weight for a while, but that was treatable when we discovered what it was.”
Heartbreak and joy: a New Zealand doctor’s time in Nepal Nine To Noon
The experience influenced “our whole culture and identity and values as a family,” he says.
Although he was working under the umbrella of the United Mission to Nepal, his was not a proselytising mission, he says.
“We were there wanting to make a contribution medically rather than any sort of church building.”
A “generalist at heart”, Judkins subsequently settled into a long career as a GP in South Auckland.
“I like the broad range of options of presentations. I like not knowing what’s going to come in the door next, what issues there may be, developing a wide range of skills.
“So yes, I think being a generalist suited me very well. And it’s a lovely blend of science and humanity as well.”
Greg Judkins
www.heatheranddoug.com
His book, as well as a medical memoir, is a tribute to his 50-year marriage, he says.
“I’ve likened our relationship to being like two trees planted close and having grown in an embrace of branches. I think having married at such a young age, we helped shape each other.”
Heartbreak and joy: a New Zealand doctor’s time in Nepal Nine To Noon
