RENEE LIANG - PAEDIATRICIAN AND POET

RENEE LIANG - PAEDIATRICIAN AND POET

If you ever call the Liang residence, here's a tip: Don't ask for Dr Liang.

The response is: "Which one?"

With three doctors in Renee Liang's family - her father is also a paediatrician and a sister is a surgeon on the Gold Coast - she has never been far from excellence.

A third sister is a film maker.

Renee Liang, 37, grew up in Auckland and is a proud old girl of St Cuthbert's College in Epsom.

She says that growing up in a family who supported her love of both medicine and the arts helped her to become a confident woman.

"I always felt encouraged and always felt mastery.

"My primary school friends tell me that they can still remember me saying that I wanted to be a pediatrician - and I was 7 years old!

"But my dad was one and I knew the word - I always looked up to him and now I'm here."

Dr Liang works as a consultant paediatrician and researcher.

She has an interest in community and child health and her research involves looking at human development.

Her second love - the arts - has also seen her become a widely published poet, playwright and short-story writer, as well as being involved in the performing arts.

She says her Chinese name, Wei Wei, was given to her by her grandfather and means "literary blossom."

"My grandfather named me that because he said there were too many doctors in the family - we need a writer or an artist!

"My mother didn't tell me that until my third year into medicine, so who knows what would have been if I had known that before."

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10654478
Dr Liang plans to continue her journey in life "as sort of a surprise".