New Year Honours: Rotorua doctor Janette Irvine made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit
30 Dec, 2020 05:00 PM
5 minutes to read
When Rotorua's Dr Janette Irvine started medical school in the 1970s she was told she was only there to find a husband and then she would drop out.
Many of her classmates, then made up
of only 30 per cent women, had stuck their noses up at females in the profession at her time as they believed they had taken the spot of a more deserving man.
"It stuck with me. It was not how it was going to be. It felt as though I had to prove myself as a woman in a way and that was not right."