Member Profile: Glenise Berry

ANZSGM Life Member and retired geriatrician Glenise Berry has had a career spanning over 40 years. Glenise reflects on the changes she has seen in the specialty and the people and roles that have helped shape her esteemed path.

When did your career begin? And what led you to specialise in Geriatric Medicine?
My entry into geriatric medicine was fortuitous. I completed my Renal, metabolic training and gained my FRACP the end of 1978 as chief resident of Professor Abe Rappaport at Toronto Western, Toronto. I met Professor Lyn Beattie in the geriatric ward and was inspired and fascinated by her commitment to the burgeoning specialty of Geriatric Medicine, to this day she remains my mentor and friend. In mid 1979, my husband Dr Damien Thomson was about to finish his medical oncology training and wanted more training in Toronto, thus I needed a job. Professor Beattie informed me of the inaugural Fellowship in Geriatric Medicine, with the University of Toronto, which was already filled by two Canadian young physicians and she said I would make a great Geriatrician, I replied “A what?”. I spent the next year during my Fellowship, convincing myself of geriatrics as a worthwhile specialty and becoming absolutely committed. My mother-in –law sent us an advertisement for a staff geriatrician and a staff medical oncologist at the Princess Alexandra Hospital where I was an intern and we returned to Australia with full time jobs, in my home city of Brisbane. There was no advanced training in geriatrics as yet, and when I asked Dr Ric Burns, SA neurologist chair of the advisory committee for Geriatric Medicine, “How do I get registered as a geriatrician?”, he replied “Get a job as a geriatrician, you’re a geriatrician!” How things have changed! It was then that I began my full career as a Physician in Geriatric medicine with Queensland Health remaining at the PAH, but becoming a visiting 6 Session  physician after I had my first child in 1982. My career  included many roles in  the ANZSGM.

What have been my career highlights?

1. Being continually inspired by my friends and colleagues in geriatric medicine particularly the selfless, philanthropic Dr Glenda Powell, AM; my friend and mentor, Dr Paul Varghese; long term director of the Geriatric Unit, Professor Ruth Hubbard the doyen of Frailty in Australia and prodigious researcher; and Dr Emily Gordon, who took over my job at PAH to combine with her burgeoning research career.
2. Running the Award Winning Orthogeriatric Service at PAH in the two years before my retirement.
3. Becoming a life member of the ANZSGM, on retirement in 2018 as well as my appointment as Emeritus Physician in Geriatric Medicine , PAH on retirement.
4. Being on the organising committee for the ASM, ANZSGM 2023 and organising and chairing the (by all accounts) successful lunchtime symposium The Arts : Ageing, Health and Well being.
5. Being able to survive in marriage, as well as support my husband in his career and my three successful professional non-doctor children and their partners and now four grandchildren with a major childcare commitment – no childcare for my granddaughters. My family is my everything now with no formal career to focus my attention.

What was it like starting out in your field as one of the few women and what were the challenges?
I was used to achieving in a male dominated profession, in my University of Queensland graduation year in 1972 there were 20 per cent women. But this has certainly been addressed over the years and geriatric medicine now has one of the highest female representations. I have to admit I never suffered any #metoo moments in my career, possibly testifying to the integrity of my geriatric male colleagues and to my determination to be the best geriatrician I could be and offer mentoring and support of numerous trainees over my 38 year career.

How have you seen the specialty developed over the years?
Years have seen the service developments of geriatric medicine, such as orthogeriatric services, collaboration with the emergency medicine, perioperative care, memory clinics, the Dementia and Frailty networks and telehealth, as well as the rise of private geriatric medicine. Geriatric medicine has developed a political voice through the National Aged Care Alliance, to which I was the ANZSGM rep for a number of years, spokespersons to the Royal Commission on Aged care and to the issue of Voluntary Assisted Dying.

Tell us about your interest in choral music and its connection to healthy ageing and mental health.
My major long term interest and passion  has been the arts including music and in particular choral singing, since high school years. My active participation in The Brisbane Chorale has been a constant joy, and has sustained me over the years and been pivotal in supporting some mental health issues. Singing in my view, is the most powerful form of mindfulness. There is growing recognition and evidence base for music and choral singing in optimising healthy ageing and well-being, as well as in the young, including indigenous youth; depression and anxiety, chronic pain and of course Parkinson’s and Dementia. I was immensely proud of the ANZSGM ASM 2023 delegates in raising just over $4000 in the raffle of the beautiful Debra Hood print. I was even more proud to hand the donation to Melissa Gill, choral director of Sing Sing Sing for Dementia Choir, the first in Queensland, based here in Brisbane and with over 60 members now. I am continually inspired by stories in this group of people and the powerful effect of social connectedness and belonging inherent in being a member of a choir, which adds to the neurocognitive and neurochemical effects of the choral singing itself.  This is where I spend every Tuesday morning as a volunteer, receiving my own selfish dose of endorphins. My family are active orchestral and choral musicians, although not their primary professions, of whom I am immensely proud.

Photo courtesy: Glenise Berry
Glenise surrounded by her family in Brisbane