I had a girlfriend in the US who I met on one of my trips abroad, but that didn’t last. I also had a passionate relationship in my senior year with someone who was not in my class. But I didn’t have a proper relationship until I was 21 or 22. After graduating I felt more confident sexually and had more mature relationships.
I came to Australia when I was 25 years old to continue my training in paediatrics. In 1982 I became the ABC’s health reporter, and then when I was managing director of Radio National I hired Geraldine Doogue, who is one of my closest friends. He doesn’t change behavior when he’s in the air, which is his biggest strength.
I met my first wife, Lee Sutton, a fellow pediatric registrar, through an incubator in a premature baby unit at what was then the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children in Sydney. She was straight and honest and we shared similar interests. I recognized that she would be an amazing mother, which she has been to our children Anna, Georgia and Jonathan.
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It’s kind of embarrassing to have been married [and divorced] twice. I’ve heard men complain about the women in their lives as the reason they’ve gotten married more than once, when 50 percent or more of the reason is us men.
In my latest book, So You Want to Live Younger Longer?, I write about the stigma of aging women. I think men feel it too. I’m not critical of plastic surgery or people with money who want to alter their appearance, but I think as a community we are much less kind to women when it comes to how they look and how they age.
My grandmothers took great care of their appearance until the day they died. However, when I talk to women about it, they say they actually do it for other women. The same goes for clothes and make-up. They have not the slightest interest in what men think of them. It’s what other women think of them; it’s who they dress for.
So you want to live younger? (Hachette) by Dr. Norman Swan is now available.
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