Dr Clara Tuck Meng Soo has announced her retirement after decades of service as a general practitioner.
Canberra’s medicos are taking a moment to celebrate the career of Dr Clara Tuck Meng Soo, who has announced her retirement after 35 years in general practice.
After training in Malaysia and the UK, Dr Soo immigrated to Australia in 1989 and began her career in Australian general practice.
As one of Australia’s only openly transgender GPs, Dr Soo has been a trailblazer in creating affirming spaces in general practice for marginalised groups.
Many of the elements of care that Dr Soo pioneered have now become the norm.
Gender-diverse patients, people with addiction, sex workers, refugees, ex-prisoners, and individuals living with chronic disadvantage have all benefited from her work.
“I was really lucky that I had a cohort of very altruistic, very dedicated doctors working with me, and we are all prepared to actually provide non-judgmental care to these people and go to go the extra mile for them,” Dr Soo told The Medical Republic.
“It was really gratifying that … we could see over the years that our work with them, our non-judgmental care, was actually making differences.
“The gratifying thing for me was to play a lead role in providing care for the transgender community, in particular for the younger members of the transgender community and contributing to the discourse about the importance of providing care.”
Her commitment to the healthcare for marginalised groups extended beyond the clinic, with Dr Soo also serving as President and board member of the Australian Professional Association for Transgender Health.
In recognition of her work, she was awarded the medal of the order of Australia in 2015, which she later returned in protest.
She also received the AMA Diversity in Medicine Award in 2024, in honour of her decades of advocacy and leadership in establishing inclusive healthcare.
Whilst she is stepping back from her clinical work, Dr Soo will still continue her work in healthcare advocacy.
“I’m still a partner in the practice, and I will be a partner for another few years,” Dr Soo told TMR.
“I do some consultancy work, and I’m on the board of the voluntary assisted dying oversight board in Canberra.
“So I’ll still be doing some health-related things for a while.”
Reflecting on her career, Dr Soo said she hoped inclusive healthcare would continue to progress in the wake of her retirement.
“I would like to see a situation develop where gender affirming care is treated in the same way as any other medical intervention for young people in Australia,” Dr Soo told TMR.
“We really need to have a better system of funding for access to gender affirming care and potentially better training pathways for specialists to provide care in that area.
“With the LGBTIQ community, the other area now, that we are still working on … is about consent for surgical procedures for people who have variations of sex characteristics.
“Hopefully over time, all the other states will actually come on board with that as well.”
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Given Dr Soo’s many decades of dedication to general practice, stepping back from the role was no easy challenge.
“I actually thought about it for a number of years,” Dr Soo said.
“I’ve always prided myself on being a very committed GP and a very passionate GP who was willing to actually go the extra mile for the patient.
“I knew that if I pushed that passion, then I wasn’t able to go the extra mile for the patient, that I would actually not be as good as a GP.
“I also know that as a doctor in our society, our work, and the status associated with work becomes a close part of our identity.
“Being a doctor can often be a very integral part of how we see ourselves, and so I knew that if I wanted to retire, I needed to come to terms with relinquishing that.
“I was actually coming to terms with being comfortable about being seen just as me and not as Dr Soo.”
