‘Wonderful human moments’

Diane van de Mark

For 23 years, Dr Diane van de Mark worked as an obstetrician and gynaecologist at Gisborne Hospital, for much of that time as head of department.

She has always loved being a doctor. Her medical fields are about care of women, from when they are very young to women in their 80s and 90s.

Surgically it covers surgeries such as caesareans, hysterectomies, laparoscopies. Her clinics covered relationships, cancers, pregnancies and preventative medicine.

It was key, “to be able to talk to women, and even more importantly, to listen to them”.

Diane says she has met “absolutely amazing people” over the past 23 years in Gisborne, and about 17 before that, in the United States.

“It was not only the satisfaction of helping people medically but meeting all the wonderful women who came into my clinics.

She relished “the hundreds of laughs and sometimes tears, sharing all these wonderful human moments”.

One was an elderly woman who knew Diane loved gardening, so brought a tiny apricot tree she had grown herself to her appointment to give Diane.

More recently a young woman came in to have a procedure she thought would be painful. Her whanau came with her. They stood behind the surgical curtain and sang a waiata in three-part harmony.

“It was an incredibly moving moment. The beauty of their singing moved me and the nurse who was with me.

“It is those human moments, woman to woman communication, that have been so amazing.”

Diane has delivered thousands of babies into the world. She herself was born in Wellington but went to school in Wairoa and Morere. Diane can trace back seven generations in the Tairawhiti region.

In high school she never considered becoming a doctor. It was not a realistic option for girls back then.

“Boys took physics, and girls took sewing.”

After getting her Masters at Auckland University, Diane began work for the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation.

She was a reporter for the magazine show Town and Around. Next was Australia where she worked in public relations.

There she met her husband of 14 years. He was an American and they moved to San Francisco where Diane again worked as a reporter.

But she did not find television satisfying. “I wanted to do something where I was contributing to other people.”

Medicine seemed a long way up but Diane does not give up easily. She took a high school algebra paper and went on to the University of Pittsburgh for pre-med study.

After her college admissions test, Diane had many options but decided on Brown University in Rhode Island.

Her practical training included four years in Albuquerque, New Mexico. One of the poorest states in the US. She cared for many of the under privileged, including immigrants from Mexico and First Nation people.

In 1988 she officially started her ob-gyn career at one of the Harvard hospitals in Boston, where she was also a clinical instructor.

But in 1997, by then a single mum living in Massachusetts working as an ob-gyn, Diane decided it was time to come home.

Her daughter Maia was 18 months old and it was hard to be everything Maia needed without whanau around.

Diane adopted Maia from a Chinese orphanage when she was seven months old.

“I always thought I'd have children but I got divorced before I did.

“I wanted a child who needed and deserved a chance in life. I knew I could give her that chance, and an education.”

Diane remembers it being a bit scary, as well as exciting. when she travelled to China to get Maia.

“Every woman knows that feeling — this is my baby, now what do I do?

“I called her Maia because I wanted a name that wouldn't matter where she lived in the world. I chose the Maori/Polynesia spelling because I hoped this would be her home.”

Maia has been home in Gisborne for the past three months but returns to New York next week, where she went to college and has lived for the past six years.

Now 25, Maia went through managed isolation in Auckland last year so she could spend Christmas with her mum, as they have never had a Christmas apart.

As Maia grew up, part of Diane's job was being on call. When she arrived at Gisborne Hospital there were two obstetricians, yet shortly after, Diane became the only one for some time.

There were drives to the hospital in her “battered car” at all hours — with Maia.

Sometimes she would get called in again, just after she got home.

These were often emergencies but Diane would bring a sense of calm to every situation.

“When other people are in an emergency situation and extremely concerned, they need to feel someone is calm, that everything is going to be OK.

“But there were times when I wished I could have been all-powerful and things could have turned out differently.”

She says it has always been a gift to work with people, both patients and colleagues.

She will miss the hospital staff — her friends in theatre, the nurses, the orderly who would burst into song every time he passed her in a hospital hallway because he knew she loved singing.

“All those little things have made this something I have been lucky enough to experience.”

Being at births, and in that intimate life moment, was hard to put into words — “ because it is much deeper than words”.

“There are absolutely so many wonderful, beautiful, moments around birth,” she said. “But there are also moments of incomparable sadness.

“I'm thinking with humility of all the women who have trusted me and put their and their children's lives in my hands.

“The responsibility of that, and how rewarding it is, I can't describe.

“I remember all the hugs, laughter and tears I've shared which made it all worthwhile to get up as many times as I did.”

Diane has seen changes in Gisborne Hospital over her 23 years that leave her feeling pleased with how it has adapted.

“There have been such changes in our department, and hospital-wide.

“Laparoscopy was in its infancy with basic equipment when I started. Now there's amazing technology and obstetrically huge progress.

“Everyone works really hard to achieve the same standards here that you would find internationally.”

Diane has always been happy with the close cooperation between midwives and obstetricians too. “That isn't the case in all hospitals.”

Today, there are five obstetricians at Gisborne hospital — “all extremely well-trained and great”.

Diane says making sure the department she headed for so long is left in good hands is something she is proud of.

“That department is such an amazing department. We all learned together and built it up. The standard of medicine these new obstetricians practise is of the highest standard in the world.

“Colleagues are such an important part of work life. You have to be happy. I never worked in isolation — I had wonderful colleagues in all areas.”

It is in her garden Diane recharges. Digging in the dirt, whether in her vege or flower garden, relieves the stresses of the day.

“I find it very calming.”

Since retiring, Diane has caught up more with her Wairoa whanau.

She also loves reading and listening to music.

Other retirement plans went up in smoke with the pandemic. She had planned a summer-to-summer lifestyle between Gisborne and America.

Diane loves to travel and explore other cultures, preferring to travel alone “because you meet more people that way”.

She had also planned on joining more community groups — especially any to do with native tree planting, or that help mothers and children.

“I miss being able to help. I want to carry on doing something worthwhile.”

But being “in the age group” where you have to be careful about Covid, means she will wait for her vaccine first before she branches out more.

Diane feels she had recognition every day for her job, from the families she helped and the people she worked with. She was happy to slip away quietly, helped by her retirement coinciding with the start of lockdown.

But her colleagues want to remember her in a more formal way.

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