Brown, Female, Doctor
A Memoir
Dr SA. If you saw my initials you would not know what they represent except that I am a doctor.
My first name is Sarah. So now you know that I am a female doctor.
What if I told you that my last name was Arachchi? Would you ask me how me to pronounce it, and later where it originated from?
What if, when I spoke, you heard my thick Australian accent? Would you wonder how I got here?
What if you saw the colour of my skin – would you ask me where I am from?
Sarah is a brown female doctor who emigrated to Australia in the 1990s. Her journey to becoming a paediatrician has been challenging, right from the schoolyard. As a minority, she was perceived as different. She tried hard to blend in, but she was unfamiliar to her peers. No brown heroines in the fairytales she was exposed to left her with few role models. As an adult, a graduate in the medical world, she experienced a new kind of obstacle: being female in a male-driven hospital environment.
When she eventually walked across the stage to get her paediatric letters, with a drip in her arm, a pregnant belly, a toddler on her hip and heels that could shatter a glass ceiling, victory was bittersweet.
In the spirit of Dr Neela Janakiramanan's The Registrar, Sarah Malik’s Desi Girl and Anita Rani’s The Right Sort of Girl, this is a story of grit and determination, hope and self-discovery. It is a powerful call for social change and a greater acceptance of diversity.
Dr Sarah Arachchi is a Melbourne paediatrician who emigrated from Sri Lanka with her family in 1990. She studied medicine at Monash University and completed an internship at Monash Health. She has also trained at the Royal Children’s Hospital and Monash Children’s Hospital, and obtained her fellowship to the Royal Australasian College of Physicians in 2017. She is a vocal advocate for women in medicine, including through her work as a member of the Women in Medicine committee of the Australian Medical Association. She is married to a gastroenterologist and has two boys.
