THE DOCTOR IS IN (MAGAZINES)
Off-duty she’s a fashion model, but Dr Calli Dogon is more at home in scrubs. By Lin Sampson
This medic is also a model
CALLI Dogon, the first princess of Clifton, dreamt of being a medical doctor since she was a little girl.
Four years ago her dream came true when she graduated cum laude from the University of Cape Town medical school.
And that’s how the doctor who looks like she stepped off the cover of Vogue ended up as in intern in Ngwelezane Hospital near Empangeni in KwaZulu-Natal.
“I think subconsciously I had been so protected all my life I needed to throw myself into something extreme,” she says.
“Ngwelezane has the highest incidence of HIV in the world. I got multiple stick [needle] injuries. It really freaked my mother out.”
Her mother is Denise Dogon, celebrity realtor to the rich and famous of Cape Town’s high-end Atlantic seaboard.
A Ngwelezane staff member recalls, “We couldn’t believe it when she arrived, she was so beautiful and well manicured, she looked more like a model.”
When we meet at Groote Schuur hospital, where Dogon is doing community service, I can see her former colleague’s point. Even in scrubs and violet surgical rubber gloves, a shiny black stethoscope pinned to her shoulder, she has an audacious chic that forms a bubble of light.
“Initially the staff were a bit amazed by me,” Dogon says. “They thought me very opinionated and then when they found I was from Cape Town, they thought ‘What’s this pampered girl doing here?’ ”
It was as a 24-year-old at Ngwelezane, surrounded by pathogens, performing caesarean sections, handling triage and trauma, that Dogon dug deep to discover her inner resources.
“The thing about medicine is that the learning exercise is more beautiful than anything. Your curiosity is constantly piqued. There is always something new to learn and the more you learn, the less you realise you know. For me this was something really, really major.”
She is working in private ER while also doing research at Groote Schuur on HIV.
Specialist physician Megan Borkum, her supervisor at Groote Schuur, says: “It has been fantastic working with Calli. She throws herself head first into the work and has wonderful empathy with the patients, and relates well; it is so important when you deal with people from other cultures and different circumstances.”
If medical school hadn’t worked out, it’s easy to imagine that Dogon might have found a niche in the glamour capitals of Paris, Milan and New York.
“I’ve always modelled since I was a teenager, so it is not new and I love it because it is so different from medicine.
“I have been doing a lot of Barre training [ballet, Pilates and yoga] and it has saved my life,” Dogon says.
“I would come from medical school stressed out. You can be extremely professional and empathetic but you need downtime. I read Vogue and get inspiration for a clothing label I am developing.” What makes a good doctor? “Humility. And don’t be frightened of asking for a second opinion.”