From hosting kids’ TV shows – including 3:45 Live! and The Bugs Bunny Show – to becoming one of Aotearoa’s most esteemed child and adolescent psychiatrists, Dr Hinemoa Elder, 60, FRANZCP, PhD, MNZM, of Ngāti Kuri, Te Aupōuri, Te Rarawa, Ngāi Takoto and Ngāpuhi nui tonu descent is a formidable wahine and the author of five bestselling books.
I grew up in a house of books, where every night, one of our parents would read to us.
That was our tīkanga [custom]. My earliest memories are of drifting off in that sacred time, at the end of the day, into worlds of imagination and exploration.
There was an eclectic range of titles,
From Watership Down to A Thousand and One Nights, partly because our father, a professor of physics, loved to buy old books at estate auctions. This was in Manchester in the 1970s and he brought home some very quirky books. Our mother, an English teacher, was also passionate about reading and writing. I still have these books – they are precious taonga and holding them now reminds me my parents are still with me.
I went to a very sweet inner-city primary school
Called St. James-in-Birch in central Manchester. The big kaupapa there was reading, and every Friday morning, all the tamariki who had finished a book that week would stand at the front of the school, and everybody clapped and cheered them. I grew up thinking that celebrating reading was normal.
I did kids’ TV for a relatively short time and never planned to do it forever.
Then after Mum got really ill with breast cancer – she died in 1991 – that experience made me consider becoming part of the health workforce, partly to try to do things differently. Many options that were not available to her as a wahine Māori were cultural options and if she’d had those things, it could have made her journey a bit easier.
I started medical school when I was 27.
The journey was long and gruelling, and it shaped me, which leads me to consider our medical stories. One of the pou [pillars] of learning to become a doctor is called ‘history-taking’. I’m not too fond of the ‘taking’ idea, because it’s really about listening – paying exquisite attention to the story somebody tells you in that moment about their life. Because doctors are trusted with elements of a person’s life story, things they may never have told anyone else. It is a privilege and extraordinarily intimate to have vulnerable people share their sacred innermost thoughts, and I never take that for granted.
I was tempted by other specialisations,
Including surgery, and I did part of my elective in my sixth year at Memorial Sloan Kettering, a big cancer hospital in New York City. But I soon realised that the demands and structures of surgical training meant I would not see much of my children if I took that pathway, and Millie and Reuben were just 10 and seven at that time, so I focused on psychiatry.
It’s important to talk about my brother.
Maru was two years younger than me and he passed away in 1999 when he was 31. In his early adult life, Maru developed a serious mental illness. He’d been admitted to some adult inpatient units and he also had many amazing attributes. He completed a music degree. He built a harpsichord. He played the organ at churches around Auckland. I love when people tell me that they heard him play and it is so tragic that he ended his own life. I really miss him. Maru serves as a constant reminder to me of the importance of meaningful and effective mental health services for everyone.
In our lives, we hold much uncertainty and many questions.
We also have many memories, some of which are on this vast spectrum of pain and suffering, and others that are on the spectrum of joy and happiness, and they are all woven together. In my books, I encourage people to enter those places of memories, to wrap that korowai [cloak] around us, because memories serve a great purpose in healing, even if some of the questions remain unanswered.
I went to the first Auckland Writers Festival in 1999
and I heard Felipe Fernándex-Armesto speak at what is now the Pullman Hotel. I was wowed by his kōrero [words] and his writing, and not just for what he was saying, which was inspiring, but as a book lover. I loved that we had a festival like that in Tāmaki Makaurau [Auckland], an event where people came together to celebrate the power of stories in our lives.”
Dr Hinemoa Elder is appearing at the Auckland Writers Festival, May 12-17. For tickets, visit writersfestival.co.nz
Help is here:
Suicide Crisis Helpline – 0508 828 865 (0508 TAUTOKO).
Depression Helpline – 0800 111 757 or free text 4202 (to talk to a trained counsellor about how you are feeling or to ask any questions).
Anxiety NZ – 0800 269 4389 (0800 ANXIETY)
