The Past
Merle Smith (née Kell, formerly Dunlop)
BSc 1953, MAACB 1967
I obtained a BSc from UWA in 1953, majoring in Organic Chemistry. I only worked, following graduation, for less than 2 years when I married and had 2 children fairly quickly then returned to the workforce when the children were 3 and 4 because my husband became ill then died. I was employed first in Victoria, where I was involved in cholesterol studies, and then at the Royal Perth Hospital in WA from 1960 to 1967 and again in 1970.
It was not easy in the '50s to be a working mother. There was minimal appropriate childcare and little opportunity for part time employment in Victoria or WA. Also there was not equal pay for equal work until the early '70s. In the early 1960s I took 2nd and 3rd year Biochemistry units at UWA and received my Member of the Australian Association of Clinical Biochemists in 1967.
From 1960 to 1963 I worked on research relating to development of open heart surgery procedures. From 1963 to 1967 I carried out research and development on problems of rapid drug testing in emergency situations, resulting in papers published with Professor David Curnow and physicians.
In the late '60s I remarried and I then left the scientific workplace to bring two families together. It wasn’t until 1979 that I returned to work to be the biochemist at the opening of a small branch of a private pathology lab in Tasmania. At that time there were only three scientists in the lab, one office worker and two drivers.
When I left in 1998 after being appointed as Laboratory Manager and then Practice Manager from 1990 to 1998, this small lab had grown to a staff of over 70 including two full time pathologists with three separate labs and two separate collection centres in the northwest region of Tasmania.
My work from then has been as clinical senior lecturer in the School of Bioscience at the University of Tasmania. I had for the previous 17 years prior to this appointment, served on the Course Advisory Committee for the B.Appl.Sc.(Medical Science). I am also a post graduate distance education student studying for a Masters in Medical Science.
The greatest influence to me as a school student was Madame Curie, because of the research and the excitement of discovery. Later Professor David Curnow influenced my thinking and my career. Also some of the women in clinical biochemistry when I started were very inspiring. I thoroughly enjoyed the years of “hands on” chemistry and the research and development period, but in the later years I gained a great deal of satisfaction from the human resources aspect, especially on issues of clinical and technical training and personal development. I would have liked to do more research and to have worked in the forensic field more. I believe that females have an exceptional aptitude for this type of work in a clinical pathology laboratory. There is a need to be effective with time management and there is the patient care aspect. Women have these skills.