The incredible story of a woman who took the path less travelled to work for the Royal Flying Doctor Service in outback Australia, and what the experience taught her about life, death and human connection.
It was 1988. I had no time for makeup and wore a crushed heart on my sleeve. My life was up in the air. Being a flying doctor grounded me. I went underground to rescue a miner trapped in a rock fall and flew across the outback to treat a critically ill baby. I learned that medicine was not all life and death experiences – it was the quiet moments when you gained a patient’s trust.
It was not Elizabeth Green’s destiny to be a doctor. Raised in the remote Kimberley region of Western Australia, her mother a teacher and her father a priest, the career options open to her were limited. But against the odds of the time and her upbringing, she was accepted to study medicine. The course was set for a life of extremes, one that would see her return to the remote places that shaped her, and grapple with life and death in the Australian Outback.
No Time for Makeup is a raw, unguarded insight into medical life. It is about the light and the dark sides of providing life-saving care. The complexities of practicing in a time of unprecedented social change. The conflicts of being a working parent. The quiet moments of gaining a patient’s trust, and being inspired to become a better doctor.
Dr Elizabeth Green graduated from Melbourne University in 1982. She worked in hospitals and in rural and city general practice before landing a job with the Royal Flying Doctor Service in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia. The children of the outback inspired her to become a paediatrician, a passion lived for twenty-four years as a private paediatrician in Perth/Boorloo and ongoing, shouting out for children to be seen and heard. She is the author of Parenting is Forever: A paediatrician’s tips for parents, teachers and carers (UWA Publishing, 2017) and a medical writer on what impacts our kids: anxiety, autism and ADHD. Her short story, Tiger Wave was longlisted in the Best Australian Yarn Competition 2022.
Introduction
The moment
Part 1: Becoming a junior doctor
1: The birth of a medical dream
2: A backyard bigger than a sheep paddock
3: Red, the colour of blood and dirt
4: My mother’s childhood, milk, butter and cream
5: There were no hugs or books in my father’s house
6: Why I did medicine
7: Nearly there
8: Too young
9: Death
10: First year as a doctor
11: ‘Right place, right time, wrong place, wrong time’
12: Saved by kindness
13: Psychiatry, triggers and spirals
14: The Queen of Hearts and Mrs Brown
Part 2: General practice—bush to the burbs
15: Echuca, where the rivers run
16: Eltham, where the trees bend
17: A lost letter
Part 3: Being a flying doctor
18: The call of the outback
19: Flying on the tips of angel’s wings
20: Serendipity
21: Along the Trans line
22: Long way for a house call
23: The other Marg
24: Trapped underground: Lady Bountiful Mine 1990
25: A patient’s trust
Part 4: Paediatrics – the long road home
26: The wedding, better than Dimboola
27: Princess Margaret Hospital for Children: Where are the toilets?
28: Death gets a head start
29: Baby on the eighth floor
30: King Edward Memorial Hospital: Born too soon
31: Serendipity 2
32: Port Hedland: back to the bush
33: Birth’s trauma
34: A real paediatrician
35: The changing face of paediatrics
36: You can’t have it all
37: Why being a paediatrician is worth it
38: Ruby roses
39: Thank you Mr Lemon
‘No Time for Makeup is not an ivory tower recollection — dusty and dry. It is a memoir from the coalface of medicine, with multiple seams that criss-cross Australia; told with a raw and riveting narrative. Peels back the thin veneer of medicine, to reveal a fierce, if at times fearful heart. Ultimately, a triumph over self-doubt, told with pathos, humour, and a steely resolve to succeed. And succeed it does. To quote Ralph Waldo Emerson: “To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived … is to have succeeded.” No Time for Makeup succeeds — on this, and every other level. A thought-provoking book that will resonate with many. Read it.’
— Dr Richard (Ric) Christie, paediatrician
‘A girl from the bush becomes a flying doctor and a paediatrician — a compelling story of courage, determination and, above all, professional dedication, filled with gratitude for those who helped her along the way.’
— Jay Weatherill, former Premier of South Australia
‘This honest, moving and amusing reflection on a life in medicine allows us to follow the journey of a young medical student through her training years and well into her fascinating career as a general practitioner, flying doctor and paediatrician. The author is not afraid to bare her soul and inner doubts, but does so in a highly entertaining manner. Well worth a read.’
— Professor Susan Elliott AM, Provost, Monash University
‘As a child of a family raised in the bush and later a mother to four bush boys, we have been the grateful recipient of the warm, compassionate, and vital care from the flying doctor. Often in hours of desperate need and miles from anywhere.
I have observed, being a flying doctor is not for the faint hearted and takes a special kind of grit and tenacity to endure. The workplace always challenging, often in the back of aircraft in rough and bumpy conditions or on remote and isolated properties.
No Time for Makeup: The life of a flying doctor and paediatrician is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the significant, life-saving role that remote medicine plays in the Australian outback. We are grateful to Dr Elizabeth Green and her memoir capturing her time with the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) in Kalgoorlie — and the many adventures she shared with her RFDS Medical Director husband , Dr Stephen Langford.
I’ve always been a strong believer in working hard to achieve your dreams. It helps to nourish our soul with the work and the life that is our passion, while still being open to learn, to stay curious and to stay engaged. This memoir is a beautiful demonstration of just that.’
— Tracey Hayes, Chair of the Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia, one of Australia’s 100 Women of Influence
‘ “Vocation” is an old-fashioned word these days mostly associated with a religious calling. Elizabeth Green’s story in No Time for Makeup: The life of a flying doctor and paediatrician is all about vocation — her calling to be and to do, to learn, to care, to serve, to move into places and situations that are challenging all the while following a deep sense of purpose. Elizabeth’s story will speak to any parent who has made a dash to hospital with a sick child, or those living in remote locations who have looked to the skies for the RFDS plane, and of course, women navigating life, career, children — the life of a calling in the middle of life, family and community. This is a story of calling and callings, and of being shaped by the same in hope and definitely the strength and determination of faith and love. Everyone will find something to value and inspire between the covers of this remarkable story.’
— The Most Reverend Kay Goldsworthy AO DD, Anglican Archbishop of Perth
