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Speaker 1: Celebrating International Women's Day.

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Speaker 2: It's a special Will and Woody podcast Mini.

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Speaker 3: Hey, it's well and wody on a Monday afternoon. I

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Speaker 3: hope you guys are all having a wonderful drive home, woulds.

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Speaker 3: Today is International Women's Day, so you and I are

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Speaker 3: getting the most important women on in our lives, and

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Speaker 3: your mum, Doctor Whitelaw joins us right now.

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Speaker 2: Hello Dr white.

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Speaker 4: Law for the show.

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Speaker 1: Hi.

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Speaker 4: Well, hello you.

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Speaker 2: Very well, thank you, I mum high words hell a

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Speaker 2: very good thank you, Thank you so much for joining us.

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Speaker 1: I know that you're very busy being a doctor. Mom.

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Speaker 2: The theme of International Women's Day is Choose to Challenge,

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Speaker 2: and I really like that as a theme because it

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Speaker 2: instantly made me think about you and amongst all the

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Speaker 2: things you've done looking after me and being an amazing mum,

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Speaker 2: I think there's one particular thing from your life that

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Speaker 2: you did where you really did choose to challenge, and

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Speaker 2: it's acted as somewhat of an inspiration to me because

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Speaker 2: I love how brave if you were within all of it,

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Speaker 2: and it was the decision that you made twenty years ago. Mum. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: you'd been a physics teacher for a while you'd had

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Speaker 2: three kids and then you made the decision Mum to

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Speaker 2: go back to UNI.

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Speaker 4: Absolutely why Okay, So I think to do something like that,

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Speaker 4: something has to really shake you up to maybe stop

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Speaker 4: and look back at your life. At that time, one

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Speaker 4: of my closest girlfriends was killed suddenly in a car accident,

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Speaker 4: and I've never experienced grief like it, and I had

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Speaker 4: a terrible year, shocking, and it sort of made me

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Speaker 4: think about trying to make a positive out of what

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Speaker 4: had happened and use that energy and put it into

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Speaker 4: something else and do something radical. I then was faced

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Speaker 4: with having to get into a science degree to get

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Speaker 4: a background in chemistry before I could consider looking at

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Speaker 4: studying dietetics to be a dietitian. Anyway, at the age

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Speaker 4: of forty, I turned up to my first lecture and

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Speaker 4: I had one child that I dropped off at kinder

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Speaker 4: and the boys were at school. I'm sitting in his

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Speaker 4: lecture theater and of course everyone looks really young, and

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Speaker 4: I'm sitting there for enrollment and a woman next to

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Speaker 4: me is someone similar age, and I'm thinking, oh, great,

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Speaker 4: I'm going to have a buddy, and she said, oh,

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Speaker 4: you're signing up for your daughter.

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Speaker 2: Too, Mum, I'll get to know a really happy ending

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Speaker 2: where this is all got to and how hard I've

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Speaker 2: seen you work, And again, like I said, I will

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Speaker 2: get to what you've actually recently achieved, which is extraordinary.

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Speaker 2: But if I can just take you back to when

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Speaker 2: you made the decision to go back to UNI, how

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Speaker 2: hard was that in that? You know, obviously that was

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Speaker 2: the complications of being the oldest there, but what about

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Speaker 2: having three kids at home and as you said, you

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Speaker 2: had to drop one at kindergarten and too at school?

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Speaker 1: Was that a tough conversation with Dad?

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Speaker 4: For starters, he was actually very supportive, and he had

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Speaker 4: a job that could be a bit flexible, so he

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Speaker 4: was able to help.

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Speaker 1: Me stripper, but go on, and also.

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Speaker 4: I was thinking, it's actually made me think a bit.

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Speaker 4: I remember my first year. I would have to drop

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Speaker 4: my daughter at kinder I belt out to UNI and

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Speaker 4: I could get in maybe one or two lectures before

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Speaker 4: I'd have to turn around and go and pick her up.

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Speaker 4: And then in those days they didn't stream lectures, but

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Speaker 4: actually they did record them on dvdays, and so sometimes

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Speaker 4: I would go out at night, hit in the library

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Speaker 4: and go through three or four DV days of lectures

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Speaker 4: so that I could catch up. So it's challenging, but

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Speaker 4: I absolutely had this determination that I was going to

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Speaker 4: do this.

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Speaker 2: So you've worked really, really hard to become a titian.

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Speaker 2: You're then working at the Royal Children's Hospital. Tell everyone

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Speaker 2: what you achieved last year.

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Speaker 4: Well, it was actually the end of twenty nineteen. I

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Speaker 4: completed and had passed my pH d, which I'd started

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Speaker 4: eight and a half years before.

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Speaker 3: Gee wiz, how about that talking about choosing to challenge yourself.

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Speaker 1: That's amazing, Melissa, what is mum?

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Speaker 3: Thank you so much for coming.

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Speaker 1: On the show, Like genuinely, that was inspiring. I'm sure

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Speaker 1: a lot of people would get a lot out of that.

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Speaker 4: Thank you. That's a pleasure, and I would encourage anyone

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Speaker 4: who is thinking about doing your career change, go for

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Speaker 4: it if you can go for it. Awesome, quite refreshing

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Speaker 4: and it's wonderful to have a your career.

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Speaker 1: Thanks ma'am, well said, Okay, my pleasure.

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Speaker 3: Thanks so much, Bye, goodbye.

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Speaker 1: More of the boys on the Full Show podcast. You

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Speaker 1: know you want to