Skin deep: a cosmetic physician

Dr Gabrielle Caswell took cosmetic medicine to the bush and found a need that went far deeper than she ever imagined. Linda Peatling reports.

When self-confessed city slicker, Dr Gabrielle Caswell, left the emergency ward of one of Sydney’s busiest inner-city hospitals to marry a farmer and set up a cosmetic medical practice in the heart of rural Australia, many of her colleagues raised an eyebrow or two. Surely cosmetic medicine was far more at home in upmarket city suburbs than in down-to-earth country towns.

What they didn’t know, however, was that Gabrielle had discovered the world’s highest rate of melanoma right in the place she happened to be moving to, and saw a need that was far deeper than cosmetic. Two years later, she has more than 3,000 patients across four clinics in Northwest NSW, has detected over 200 benign and malignant skin cancers, and spends most of her time helping the people who live in one of the world’s harshest climates take care of their most vulnerable organ, the skin.

5am: Like all good farmers, Gabrielle’s husband Stefan is up at dawn, and Gabrielle has been right there with him ever since she gave up the city life to join him on his cotton and wheat farm in Moree, NSW three years ago. “Things start pretty early out here, but it’s a lot easier than working sixteen hours straight in an emergency ward,” she laughs. Even so, the decision to leave the hustle and bustle of the inner-city hospital wasn’t an easy one. “I’d only finished my medical degree a couple of years before and I loved the pace of city hospitals, so country life was a world away, but I knew I wanted to be with Stefan,” she smiles.

5.30am: The couple starts the day with a workout in their home gym and a light breakfast, rather than the quintessential hearty farm breakfast, as their four teenage sons are away. “Stefan has three boys and I have one. The house is lovely and full when they’re all here, but it’s definitely quieter when they’re away,” laughs Gabrielle. “Brenton is nineteen, and he is helping Stefan around the farm before he goes to college next year; then there’s Tom, who’s eighteen and joined a Buddhist monastery last year; James is our seventeen-year-old football star, who’s hoping to get an AFL contract this year; and Sam, fifteen, has a couple more years of school before he needs to make any decisions.”

6am: Stefan heads out to manage his 12,500-acre farm, while Gabrielle strolls into her beloved herb garden to relax and prepare for the day. “It gives me a chance to think, and it’s a green oasis in this drought,” she sighs. “I’d never really thought about the weather in the city, but out here it’s everything.”

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