Victorian GP Margaret Niemann awarded for her work as a mental health trailblazer
Margaret Niemann laughs off a question about her "legacy" in regional healthcare, but her impact is undeniable.
The retired general practitioner, whose career spanned four decades, was recently awarded an OAM in the King's Birthday honours for her services to medicine as a GP.
Dr Niemann's list of achievements is extensive, and includes long stints in remote Aboriginal communities, as well as providing groundbreaking access to mental health support in regional areas, long before such things became commonplace.
Growing up in a suburban household in the Melbourne region, with no relatives ever working in the health or care sectors, Dr Niemann's choice to go into medicine was unexpected.
"It just interested me," she said.
"I was curious about how people worked and what made them tick, and I thought medicine sounded like a way I could explore that.
Dr Neimann married a fellow med-school student, Michael Dawkins, a "country boy" who wanted to go into rural general practice.
The idea intrigued young Margaret, and they made their home in the East Gippsland town of Bairnsdale in 1984, settling down with their one-month-old baby.
Dr Niemann worked there as a GP-obstetrician while having her own children, and quickly noticed a gap in services for new mothers.
PANDA — Perinatal Anxiety & Depression Australia — had started up in Melbourne a few years earlier, but Dr Niemann said "there wasn't anything in the country at the time".
She and some others in the community joined forces to start offering antenatal classes in the area.
The take-up was high, with strong interest from young mums and it helped solidify Dr Niemann's own interest in the area of mental health.
After 12 years in Bairnsdale and three children, Dr Niemann and her husband needed a change.
It came in the form of a federal government push to have GPs living in remote Northern Territory communities, which led Dr Niemann and her husband to Maningrida, an Arnhem Land town of about 2,500 people, 500 kilometres east of Darwin.
She admitted it was nerve-racking, but with her husband, who she says is an "excellent GP", they "made a good team", providing much-needed healthcare and developing strong bonds with the Aboriginal community.
Dr Neimann said she and her husband would often go out hunting, fishing and foraging with the locals, giving them a fascinating insight into the culture.
"We just clicked — it worked well," Dr Niemann said.
Dr Niemann said while she loved working in Aboriginal health, she was most proud of her achievements in mental health.
When she began in the field, mental health care, as we now know it, was in its infancy, and psychological services in regional areas were pretty much non-existent.
Dr Niemann said her earliest work was with people with eating disorders, and it grew from there.
"There were no psychologists … so things like anxiety and depression, and even obsessive-compulsive disorder and PTSD were very hard to get any sort of support [for]," she said.
While in Bairnsdale, she began diving into the psychological effects of trauma, which dovetailed with her work in Aboriginal communities, where she quickly recognised the impact of intergenerational trauma.
"When I started, the idea [of] the psychological effects of trauma and PTSD was just not on the radar," Dr Neimann said.
"People didn't think about it [or] acknowledge it.
"[But now] it is recognised that it does cause … ongoing problems. We've progressed enormously from that time."
Dr Niemann is quick to point out that throughout her career, especially when working remotely, she has been part of a good team.
She retired during the COVID pandemic, and is loathe to use the word "legacy" when discussing the achievements and career that earned her a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in the recent King's Birthday honours.
Dr Neimann and her husband still live in Bairnsdale, where she enjoys gardening, baking, crafting and catching up with friends and family.
After a long career, "life's good", she said.
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