Dr Maryanne Balanzategui

It is a great privilege to be able to say a few words about our great friend and inspiration, Dr Maryanne Balanzategui. Yes, she had a serious side.  

Many of us gathered four years ago to celebrate Maryanne's remarkable achievement of graduating from James Cook University with a medical degree. We know of her rural background, and her training and work in many fields, including nursing and dietetics. Medicine was her dream and she achieved it. It was a tough road as we have heard, particularly for a mature-aged student with many other commitments including raising a family, working, and supporting so many others through her community commitments.  

The JCU course is challenging - getting in is tough, it is the most sought-after course in Queensland, with something like 15 applicants for every position. The course is six years long, including 20-weeks of rural placements for all students. Maryanne did all of this cheerfully, with the love and support of her family, and soon developed her own support network in medicine, her study buddies. If this was a lecture they would be sitting just over there - second row on my right. G'day Pete! I note they still don't laugh at my jokes. But Maryanne did … (she wanted to pass).  

Maryanne had, of course, started preparation for her medical studies many years ago. Many of you will recall the social events of the 80s, 90s and noughties. She wasn't just attending a country race meeting or a B & S ball, she was undertaking community engagement, doing cultural immersion.  

Her legendary ability at the Amateurs' champagne lunch to relocate bottles of wine from other people's table to ours? She was merely ensuring equitable distribution of resources. Striving for social justice and correcting inequities. This ability was only equalled by her skill in ensuring our seafood debris wound up on someone else's table so it looked like they were the ones overindulging. This was, of course, appropriate disposal of biohazards.

At graduation Maryanne signed up to train with the Queensland Rural Generalist Pathway, to fulfil her dream to be a rural doctor and serve rural communities. This involved several years in various rotations at Townsville University Hospital, including a year in emergency medicine in which she developed her advanced skills. She was loved and respected member of the hospital community, I know that many of her colleagues are here today and I thank them.

  Dr Prue Dawson, who was Maryanne's Rural Generalist training adviser sent me an email: "I absolutely delighted in all my correspondence with her and we often found our 30min [interviews] ran to two hours as we chatted about our kids, self-care, medicine, life in general and the state of the world." That was Maryanne.  

Maryanne spent the last 12 months working on Magnetic Island. That was her community, she embraced it and was cherished by her colleagues and her patients. The practice is closed today as a mark of respect, and many of her colleagues are here to pay their respects.  

Her supervisor, Dr Michael Clements, wrote to me to say, "I feel like she was already a Rural Generalist … as she had been working independently in the ED clinic … and was operating independently with limited supervision needed in the community practice. She certainly was living and working the Rural Generalist dream.' She was living her dream.  

Maryanne's training involved undertaking the examinations of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners. She was about to undertake her final year of training and would have completed all of her postgraduate training at the end of 2023. I have been personally contacted by the President of the RACGP who has advised that her training will be appropriately recognised at the right time.  

James Cook University has also commenced the process to establish a prize in Maryanne's honour. The donation page for the Dr Maryanne Balanzategui prize is now open. It's the least we could do given her years of study and all the fees she paid.  

All of this was achieved while Maryanne was raising a wonderful family. Andrew, Eliza and Molly. And Popo. Maryanne was so proud of you and the things you have achieved. Every time we look at you we see the spirit of Maryanne and know that her spirit lives on in you. And we, your friends and extended family, will look after you, as she would have wanted us to do.  

My family and Maryanne's shared some special bonds. We both have a daughter called Eliza - ours is here today with her three-month old twins. Speaking of which, Molly and I share a birthday, twins, separated at birth. She reckons she has aged better than me … You be the judge. And my wife Wendy and Maryanne shared a special friendship, right back to when they were partners in crime in those B & S days.  

Father Dave mentioned a road map, a way of living that Maryanne exemplified. I would say, Father Dave, that your presence today brings much comfort at this sad time. We served the communities of western Queensland together back in the last century - and have been to christenings, weddings and funerals together. I would say that your flock was better behaved than mine, thank you for being here.  

Maryanne taught us to seize the day, to live life to its fullest and embrace the present, for you never know what is around the corner. She cherished and nurtured friendships new and old wherever she went. And above all, she valued family, and was always there for them.  

So I will ask you all to do these things, to make them part of your life, in order to remember and honour Maryanne. A wonderful person and a wonderful friend.