40 YEARS ON COAST FRONTLINE
TWO long-serving GPs remain at the frontline of the Covid response, despite being in the high-risk category themselves.
“I’m so proud of Mum and Dad; at 67 they were within their rights to hide away during the pandemic to keep themselves safe,” said Krista Talbot of her parents, doctors Mary and Philip Lever.
“But their attitude was ‘we’re prepared to stay and work and we don’t care if we get sick or die’.
“They’ve been putting themselves on the line for decades and continue to in order to get the community vaccinated, even though Mum has asthma and catching Covid could be very dangerous for her.”
Dr Talbot, who joined her parents in the business this year, spent her holidays in the 1980s playing at her parents’ GP clinic, the Broadbeach Family Practice.
“My parents were always being stopped in the street by patients who wanted to say hello. I would spend sick days and holidays there and at Christmas time presents would load up under the tree for all the family from the loyal patients,” she said.
These days, the patients love that the little girl who
Their attitude was to ‘we’re prepared and stay and work we we don’t care if get sick or die’ Mary on her parents, Dr Krista Talbot and Philip Lever
grew up playing and then doing her student days learning at the practice is now their doctor.
Dr Talbot’s parents were born in Brisbane, and while Mary went to school and university there, Philip boarded at The Southport School and “fell in love with the Gold Coast”.
“He’d paddle across the canal from the school and head over to the beach when he could for a surf,” said Dr Talbot.
“He’s still the same; he starts late most mornings so he can have a surf before he sees the patients. He loves to surf with me now and his grandchildren as well.”
Philip and Mary met at the University of Queensland and married in 1975, a year before they graduated.
After stints in Darwin and Wales, they returned to set up a practice in rented rooms in Surf Parade, Broadbeach.
“My parents and their mates all pulled together to get the rooms set up and convince the first of the patients to start coming in,” said Dr Talbot.
Philip was the inaugural president of the General Practice for the Gold Coast. He was also on the board at Pindara Private Hospital and was deputy chairman of the board for a time.
Mary said being a doctor in the 1970s and ’80s was far different from today.
“If your patient needed to go to hospital, you wouldn’t just call an ambulance and send it there, you would go and do the admission, put in the drip, write up the management and look after the patient as well as those turning up to your general practice,” she said. “Philip would often have up to 15 patients admitted in hospital. He could also confidently attend and assist at surgeries of his patients, help with deliveries of babies, etc.”
Last month, the Levers, Dr Talbot and Brett Quabba, who joined the practice as a partner in 2021, moved from their original premises to the bottom of the QUBE building at 29 Queensland Ave, Broadbeach.
“With the increased need for space to get the vaccines out as fast as we can, we moved somewhere to better accommodate our growing needs,” said Dr Talbot.