Jeanette grew up in a family of six siblings, with four aunties and a grandmother who were nurses before her. The pull toward this mahi was in her bones long before she ever set foot in a ward. "I remember going to my auntie's graduation," she shared at her farewell gathering this week, surrounded by colleagues, friends, and whānau who had come from near and far. "And years later, I walked through the same doors for my own graduation."

After training at Waikato Hospital, Jeanette followed a path that took her far from home, including a formative period working in a small community in India, delivering babies, running vaccination projects, and visiting people across dozens of villages. "I knew that anything you can do to help, you should," she reflected. "And I think that's what has fuelled my passion over the years."

Returning to Aotearoa and eventually settling in Ōtautahi with her Husband Warren, Jeanette found her way into general practice and into the community that would become her professional home. She joined Te Aranga Health through a series of warm connections, and grew alongside the clinic through earthquakes, change, and the constant, beautiful complexity of serving a community with real and varied needs.