CHIRON Melbourne Medical School | twenty ten Making doctors since 1862 chiron Contents twenty10 Contents Turning Points Alumni Stories 01 From the head of the Melbourne Medical School 18 Fifty years of the BMedSc and letters from abroad Speculum Medical Memories 02 A retrospective look at the Medical Student magazine 24 Celebrating 150 years of medical heritage Syd Rubbo Reunions 06 Exploring the life of a charismatic and unconventional man 28 Reports from MBBS class reunions Melbourne Medical School Obituaries 08 Appointments, Departures, News & Events 30 Tributes and memories The new MD In Brief 11 The place of research in our medical course 34 Congratulations, student prizes & awards, books From the Students The Physick Gardener 12 Student experiences around the globe 37 Aspects of the Apothecary’s World Focus on Student Prizes 17 Melbourne Medical School scholarships and prizes Front: Melbourne University Medical Graduates 1949. This is one of a The editor would like to thank ISSN 0814-3978 number of photographs of medical students and graduates held in the Darren Rath for designing Medical History Museum. this issue, John Bedovian © THE UNIVERSITY OF for his production assistance MELBOURNE 2010 If you have photographs or other memorabilia of your year you believe and Cara Schultz for her would interest the museum please contact the curator, Susie Shears on editorial assistance. T: (+61 3) 8344 9935 or E: [email protected] T: (61 3) 8344 5888 Chiron is published by the Melbourne Medical School. Contributions E: [email protected] from staff, students and alumni are welcome. Enquiries and correspondence should be sent to the editor, Liz A Brentnall, Designed by Darren Rath® Advancement and Communications Unit, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, 4th Floor, 766 Elizabeth Street, The University of Melbourne, 3010, Australia. Turning Points Several themes are woven through this a guiding principle: ‘Our medical student year’s edition of Chiron: our wonderful must… be trained to be able to practise as heritage, inspiring teachers, our fundamental an applied scientist; and for this training commitment to research and our international to be effective it must be conducted in an engagement. I must start with our history atmosphere permeated by the research spirit.’ as we count down to the 150th anniversary The value of a significant research experience of the Melbourne Medical School in 2012 prior to medical graduation is evident in the and finalise selection for the first intake reminiscences from Anne Shanahan, David of graduate students into our new MD Vaux and Jenny Dowd who have each taken medical course. remarkably successful but very different career paths. Both Ross L Jones and Anna Harris write about what there is to discover of our history Teaching medical students depends heavily in two wonderful resources, Speculum, which upon the shared commitment and excellent recorded the thoughts of generations of relations we enjoy with our partner hospitals medical students, and the Medical History and research institutes. The longevity of two Museum, where Susie Shears’ superb such relationships was recognised when exhibition, The Physick Gardener, will soon we celebrated the 100th anniversary of the close. Although in dire need of refurbishment, St Vincent’s Hospital Clinical School and the museum holds much of the history of the 50th anniversary of the Department of medicine in Victoria. As one of the oldest and Paediatrics at the Royal Children’s Hospital. most successful medical schools in the world We are also building new partnerships and we need to support the documentation of our strengthening current relationships: with history so that our heritage can be properly Western Health and Victoria University Bone Biology, following the death of his friend celebrated. It is also worth noting that Med through a separate clinical school and a new and colleague Greg Mundy, an alumnus who Medleys celebrated its 90th anniversary this building for teaching, training and research spent 35 years of his illustrious research career year. Surely we have a history to be treasured. at Sunshine Hospital; and with Northern in the USA. Health and LaTrobe University at Northern How often do we hear that an inspiring Hospital in Epping. These arrangements, In the 148 years of the Melbourne Medical teacher changed a career path? Sydney led by Steve Trumble from our Medical School, many outstanding alumni have Dattilo Rubbo, ‘Ding’ Dyson and Bill Boyle Education Unit and Jane Gunn, head of our made exceptional contributions to all aspects are often mentioned in this category. While Department of General Practice, are opening of medicine. As usual, a few are recorded Ann Westmore and Helen Billman-Jacobe up exciting opportunities to work with in the obituary section of this issue. As are writing a biography of the legendary Syd local GPs to provide community oriented alumni, we are proud of our association Rubbo, I can vouch from personal experience medical education. with the University and its Medical School that David Penington was also an inspiring and look forward particularly to celebrating teacher. In his recently released autobiography International engagement is essential for any its achievements in 2012. We are changing Making Waves, he relates the priority he gave medical school of global distinction. While the name of our alumni association from to medical student teaching in his career. That our students and recent graduates gain a ‘University of Melbourne Medical Society’ to great teachers with passion and commitment global perspective on the practice of medicine ‘University of Melbourne Medical Alumni are the essence of our medical school, was through experiences abroad, many of our Society’ to reflect more clearly the function clearly evident during the Australian Medical alumni are involved in academic medicine of the group. I want to emphasise that past Council’s review of our new graduate entry throughout the world. Visiting Vanderbilt and present academic staff of the Medical MD curriculum. Geoff McColl’s leadership University in Nashville, Tennessee as part School remain eligible and most welcome in this area has been exemplary, just what we of a University of Melbourne delegation in to membership. would expect from a Melbourne alumnus! September, I met with Jack Martin and Denis O’Day, both of whom feature in the report As the year winds up I hope you are all able to Writing about the new MD, Geoff emphasises of the class of 1960 reunion. Vanderbilt has enjoy a restful period away from work, in the our goal of providing all our medical students recently named a Chair in Ophthalmology company of family and friends. with a meaningful research experience: to in honour of Denis, recognising his many our knowledge the most ambitious program years of leadership in ophthalmology at the James Best, MBBS 1972, MD 1989 for any medical school in the world. We take university. Jack has spent several months there Head, Melbourne Medical School the urging of our alumnus John Eccles as this year guiding the Vanderbilt Center in 1 chiron Feature article twenty10 Speculum By Ross L Jones ‘In making our introductory salaam before the public, we beg to congratulate the Melbourne Medical School on the first issue of its journal.’ So read the opening line of the first editorial of Speculum in July 1884. Speculum proved to be remarkably resilient even though, when a centenarian, the magazine was renovated with a succession of name changes (for example Gubernaculum from 1986-9). Did the founders of the Medical Students’ Society (MSS) magazine foresee its almost continuous publication for over a century? On only a handful of occasions have either financial crashes, censorship or a lack of contributions from the student body stopped the presses, giving us a remarkable insight into student and faculty life over most of the life of the medical school. After two decades of stagnation after its foundation, the medical school began to flourish in the 1880s, certainly enough to support a student’s magazine, and Speculum was the efflorescence of this growth. As the maiden editorial in 1884 chimed, ‘In the whole University are some 390 students on the roll; of these 190, or nearly one half, are medicals.’ The foundation of Speculum was contemporaneous with the first publications of student magazines at major northern hemisphere universities such as Harvard, Yale and Princeton—although Speculum seems to be the only publication that was exclusively medical. Concomitantly, Speculum also began its long career as a forum for the complaints of the student body. In reality, it was often the main vent through which student dissatisfaction exploded. For example, in 1885 the editors began what was to be a long-running assault on the competence of the board of the Melbourne Hospital as well as the University Council. This culminated in 1886 when the committee of the Medical Students’ Society was granted an interview with the Premier of Victoria in order to demand a greater share of university income on the basis that they made up half the number of students, 2 The Medical School was roundly castigated, in the article entitled ‘The Fifth Year Fiasco’, for failing the whole of the final year This cartoon, which appeared in Speculum in May 1933 was the work of John Parry who was then in his second year of the medical course. When Parry entered medicine he already had a diploma of architecture and had been working with an architectural firm for a couple of years. He graduated MBBS in 1937 but his medical career and life were cut short by his early death in 1940, from progressive muscular atrophy. 3 chiron Feature article twenty10 A classic skeleton cover by an unknown artist from the early 1930s This cover dates from 1980, one of the latest issues of Speculum.