2009 This view of the University of Melbourne was taken in the 1960s during the construction of the Medical Building. Many changes to the University landscape can be seen when compared to a similar photo, taken in 1942 (see page 25) and the one on our back cover, which was taken earlier this year. CONTENTS 1 22 COVER THE VALUES OF A MEDICAL EDUCATION REUNIONS FRONT: James Best 1941, 1944, 1949, 1958, 1978 Anatomy students in a ‘body painting’ class 2012 Reunions and Medical School run by senior lecturer Jenny Hayes. Haylee memories Walsh learns about the nerves and vessels 2 of the head and neck by painting them on A PLACE FOR ETHICS 24 fellow student Baotuti Sebolao. Graham Brown, Richard Smallwood, MEDICAL MEMORIES Loane Skene, Lynn Gillam, Jeffrey D Zajac, BACK: James Guest and Jenny Hayes This recent photo shows the Melbourne Paul Stewart, Jim Black, Dave Carmody, Medical School building, the Howard Aaron Wagen 26 Florey and Microbiology and Immunology OBITUARIES buildings and the building site of the 10 Parkville Neuroscience Facility. The old MELBOURNE MEDICAL SCHOOL Dental Hospital (bottom right-hand corner) is 33 currently under demolition and will become Appointments and Departures FROM OUR COLLECTION the site of the Parkville Comprehensive A monument is uncovered, Brownless Cancer Centre. 12 Biomedical Library redevelopment MEDICAL TEACHING AND LEARNING IN THE 21ST CENTURY 35 Jenny Hayes, Geoff McColl, Sarah IN BRIEF Wonseelashote, Chance T Pistoll, Christine Congratulations, Student Prizes and Awards, Mandrawa 2008 Dean’s Honours List, Participants Chiron is published by the Melbourne needed, Books Medical School. Contributions from staff, students and alumni are welcome. Enquiries 17 and correspondence should be sent to the ALUMNI STORIES editor, Liz Brentnall, Advancement and Nick and Hannah Mason, Charles Mullany, Communications Unit, Faculty of Medicine, Richard Pestell Dentistry and Health Sciences, 4th floor, 766 Elizabeth Street, The University of 21 Melbourne, 3010, Australia. MELBOURNE MEDICINE: 150 YEARS T: (+61 3) 8344 5888 E: [email protected] W: www.medicine.unimelb.edu.au/umms/ index.html Designed by Artwords Pty Ltd www.artwords.com.au ISSN 0814-3978 © THE UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE 2009 CHIRON 2008 1 THE VALUES OF A MEDICAL EDUCATION JAMES BEST ‘competency based training’ some seek to The poignant article on Canute Henry impose on universities and their medical Clowes reminds us to value each one of schools. our students and we are very grateful to Another of our erudite alumni, those who choose to contribute for the recently retired vice chancellor of Monash benefit of future students. University, Richard Larkins, addressed I congratulate those who are graduating these issues more broadly in his University this year and hope that you will maintain of Melbourne 2009 Menzies Oration, close links with your medical school. I am entitled Universities: the Foundation of sure we can do more to engage you with Civil and Successful Societies. He warns of your alma mater and hope in particular, the risk of reproducing ‘the errors of the that you will become involved in some of recent past where the things that can be our celebratory activities leading up to and easily measured rather than the things that during the Melbourne Medical School’s really matter become the determinants of 150th anniversary in 2012. both evaluation and behaviour’.* To a significant extent we are In Franz Kafka’s short story, A Country considered one of the world’s great Doctor, he writes: ‘To write prescriptions is medical schools because of our alumni, easy, but to come to an understanding with whose achievements and contributions are people is hard’. Outstanding examples of James Best so prominent and numerous. Exceptional both the capacity for self reflection and an lives and medical careers are recorded in Chiron the centaur was a great healer, understanding of people are provided by this issue, several tragically shortened famous for his knowledge and skill with the medical student elective essays and by by accident and natural disaster. What medicine. Highly revered as a teacher and reports from Nick and Hannah Mason and a remarkable range of individuals have tutor he is described as being intelligent, Charles Mullany. come through medicine over the years and civilised and kind. Among his many famous I worked with Charles as an intern how well their lives embellish the ethos of pupils was the god of medicine, Asclepios, when he was a surgical registrar at St Australian medicine. whose staff with serpent entwined is one Vincent’s Hospital and was surprised Because of our deserved reputation to receive a letter from him earlier this of medicine’s most recognised symbols. we attract outstanding professorial year describing his career change after 22 Appropriately, medical education is the appointees, nationally and internationally, years as a leading cardiac surgeon at the key theme for our 2009 edition of Chiron, but diminishing resources make it Mayo Clinic. Correctional health must with an emphasis on its effect on the lives increasingly difficult to maintain be one of the most challenging areas of of our pupils. excellence. If we are to be highly regarded Geoff McColl’s article draws our focus medical practice and, although he does not internationally we must be competitive onto the attributes or qualities we wish for mention it, Charles was prompted by a at the international level in our ability to in our medical graduates. These include a desire to ‘give back’ to society. His move support academic staff, particularly when capacity for self reflection, the ability to between two such radically different areas they take up chairs with the responsibility deal with complexity and uncertainty, of medical practice was made possible of leading a department. The support of qualities of leadership, and a strong sense by the sound knowledge base in his our alumni is greatly valued and we will of the ethics and responsibilities that medical education. We are committed to seek to provide more specific opportunities must underpin the practice of medicine. maintaining this flexibility in our students to engage your support in this area over Several articles in this issue describe our through outstanding teaching in the the next year. ethics seminars which address issues scientific basis of medicine as well as in its I hope you enjoy reading this edition we now expect our medical students to clinical practice. of Chiron and that it informs you well contemplate and discuss. We have worked closely with our about our medical school. I wish all of you While developing these qualities has medical students’ society this year and I fulfilment and success in the coming year. always been part of both the official and hope to extend the interaction over coming unofficial curricula, the new graduate years. Christine Mandrawa and her fellow Professor James Best is Head of the Melbourne course to begin in 2011 will recognise students have contributed selflessly to Medical School and seek to develop these attributes more many medical school committees and * Richard Larkins’ Menzies Oration can be explicitly. These are not skills to be learnt workshops, including those supporting found online at: http://www.trinity.unimelb. online or from textbooks as part of the development of the new medical course. edu.au/news/2009/assets09/20091027-1 CHIRON 2009 A PLACE FOR ETHICS ON ALL GREAT SUBJECTS MUCH REMAINS TO BE SAID. John Stuart Mill GRAHAM BROWN AND RICHARD SMALLWOOD AO The annual medical ethics seminar, held in the Sunderland Lecture Theatre, attracts large audiences from the medical and associated professions. In 1985 the then Faculty of Medicine at the University of Melbourne ran a seminar genetically modified organisms. The entitled ‘AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) and Its Implications for Medical increased accessibility of information Practice’. The seminar, chaired by Professor Graeme Ryan, heard from Professor David through electronic communication and Penington (then Dean of the Faculty and Chairman of the National AIDS Task Force) and data storage has brought problems of Dr Ian Gust (then Director of the Virology Laboratory at Fairfield Hospital). The following privacy and confidentiality. New situations year, another seminar, ‘Ethics at the Growing Edge of Medicine’ was held as part of that have emerged to revive old debates about year’s Dean’s Lecture Series. Convened again by Graeme Ryan, then Dean of the rights of individuals in a liberal society, Faculty, the seminar heard from Professor Emeritus Richard Lovell and Dr Davis McCaughey, and the intrusion into medical research then Governor of Victoria. and practice by government, advertising From these events was launched a series of seminars exploring ethical themes and issues agencies, the pharmaceutical industry, pertinent to the study, practice and research of medicine, which have since formed part of or others who choose to support medical each year’s series of dean’s lectures. As we move towards the 150th anniversary of the research. Melbourne Medical School in 2012, we take this opportunity to ask past and current seminar In 1982, the National Health and contributors and current staff and students to reflect on some of the issues considered in Medical Research Council (NHMRC) these seminars over the years, beginning with the thoughts of two past seminar conveners; set up a working party on ethics in Richard Smallwood and Graham Brown. Before entering into this reflection, however, we might allow the closing comments of medical research, which was chaired by Davis McCaughey’s ethics seminar address in 1986, to presage the discussion: Professor Richard Lovell, and which A good ethical discussion will range over a wide series of considerations. Old wisdom subsequently became the Medical and new demands will cast light one upon another until there emerges that consensus Research Ethics Committee (MREC) of on which formulated conventions depend.