Claire Weekes was born in Sydney in 1903 and educated at Sydney Girls' High School in a most unusual career she had fine achievements in two different areas. She entered science at the University of Sydney in 1922 and for some of her course she was in residence at the Women's College (fees: twelve guineas per annum!). She graduated with first class honours and the university medal in zoology at the beginning of 1926 and became a science research scholar of the university. She undertook research on reptiles and was awarded the degree of doctor of science in March 1930 for the thesis "Placentation amongst reptiles and its possible bearing upon the evolutionary history of mammals". She went to London University on a Rockefeller Fellowship in 1931. Her work on viviparous reptiles was the first systematic study of their placentation and sixty years later it is still looked on by zoologists both here and in the United States as the authoritative description.

It has not been possible to find why she abandoned zoology for medicine but the opportunities for science in Sydney in the 1930s were sparse. For example in 1932 the academic staff of the department of zoology in NSW's only university comprised a professor, two lecturer-demonstrators, and one demonstrator. Whatever her reasons, she entered second year medicine at the University of Sydney in 1941 and graduated MB BS in 1945. Her graduation year book said, "If the gratitude of patients for sympathy and understanding is an index of success in medicine, Claire's success is assured."

She became a general practitioner in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs and in early 1955, at the age of fifty-two, successfully took the examination for membership of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians. She was a contemporary of her examiners and when she was told by the censor-in-chief, the dignified (but never intimidatory) TM Greenaway (qv), that she had passed, she gasped with relief and said, "Thanks Tom".

She was on the staff of the Rachel Forster Hospital in Sydney as an assistant physician, and practised in Macquarie Street as a physician. However, her major contributions were in the field of psychiatry in which she had no formal postgraduate qualifications. She applied kindness, understanding and common sense to the treatment of neuroses and was always available to her patients. She was also the author of several books published by Angus & Robertson: Self-help for your Nerves (1962); Peace from Nervous Suffering (1972); and Agoraphobia - Simple Effective Treatment (1977). The first of these had sold over 400,000 copies by 1978 and was translated into several languages including Japanese. Her methods were much more highly regarded by her patients than by her professional colleagues. She had the misfortune to be many years ahead of her time but many of her methods are now incorporated in advances in the management of neuroses. The debt owed to her by the profession needs to be acknowledged.

Dr Weekes was well known in Britain and in the United States and lived abroad for a number of years. She was in demand as a public speaker on anxiety and did a great deal of broadcasting on radio while in England. After her early classical work on reptiles she appears to have published nothing in any scientific literature, but to have concentrated on practical advice for patients in need. Dr Weekes never married but had many interests outside her work. She was very musical, having a fine singing, and was particularly interested in German lieder. In her earlier years she wrote articles about overseas travel for a column in the Women's Weekly. Professionally she had two areas of great distinction. Most of us would have been proud to have just one.