No Time for Makeup

The incredible story of a woman who took the path less travelled to work for the Royal Flying Doctor Service in outback Australia, and what the experience taught her about life, death, and human connection.

It was 1988. I had no time for makeup and wore a crushed heart on my sleeve. My life was up in the air. Being a flying doctor grounded me. I went underground to rescue a miner trapped in a rock fall and flew across the outback to treat a critically ill baby. I learned that medicine was not all life and death experiences – it was the quiet moments when you gained a patient’s trust.

It was not Elizabeth Green’s destiny to be a doctor. Raised in the remote Kimberley region of Western Australia, her mother a teacher and her father a priest, the career options open to her were limited. But against the odds of the time and her upbringing, she was accepted to study medicine. The course was set for a life of extremes, one that would see her return to the remote places that shaped her, and grapple with life and death in the Australian Outback.

No Time for Makeup is a raw, unguarded insight into medical life. It is about the light and the dark sides of providing life-saving care. The complexities of practising in a time of unprecedented social change. The conflicts of being a working parent. The quiet moments of gaining a patient’s trust and being inspired to become a better doctor.