Reunion reports - 2006
- 1978 graduates celebrate 28 year reunion, November 2006
- Senior alumni celebrate 150 years of Medicine, November 2006
- 1951 graduates celebrate 55 year reunion, November 2006
- 1961 graduates celebrate 45 year reunion, September 2006
- St Paul's & Faculty of Medicine 150th Anniversary dinner, August 2006
- 1948 graduates celebrate 150 years of Medicine, June 2006
- 1946 graduates celebrate 60 year reunion, May 2006
- 1976 graduates celebrate 30 year reunion, May 2006
- Orthopaedic Surgeons Reunion, April 2006
- 1943 graduates celebrate 63 year reunion, March 2006
- 1986 graduates celebrate 20 year reunion, March 2006
- 1966 graduates celebrate 40 year reunion, January 2006
1978 graduates celebrate 28 year reunion, November 2006
Sydney University 1978 Medical Graduates’ Reunion - a great time was had by all!
The Killara Golf Club put on an excellent evening for our reunion on Friday 3 November 2006 … from the tame kookaburras on the balcony overlooking the fairways … to the food, drink and elegant clubhouse. The spinach soup with truffle oil was a triumph! And for once: NO SPEECHES!
We look forward to the big ‘three-O’ next February 2008 which will probably be in the MacLaurin Hall. Convenors Michael Giblin, Suzie Rosenthall, Andrew Byrne. Committee: Roby, Brooks, Geyer, Henschke, Haylen, Jurd, Markos, McLean, Rieger, Stokes (2). Watch this space! Contact:
Andrew Byrne
More photos
Senior alumni celebrate 150 years, November 2006
There was a buzz in the Great Hall on Monday 13 November 2006 as 255 senior alumni of the Faculty of Medicine (with friends and partners) gathered for lunch. The occasion, one of the last events of the 150th Anniversary of the Faculty of Medicine, saw many alumni catching up with class-mates and friends they had not seen in many years. The lunch, co-hosted by the Medical Graduates Association, the alumni association of the Faculty of Medicine, attracted one of the oldest living graduates of the Faculty, Sir Keith Jones who graduated from the Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery in 1933 and many former members of staff.
Many alumni arrived before the lunch for a walk down memory lane by visiting the Anderson Stuart Building and the Wilson Anatomy Museum. The Anderson Stuart Building was formerly the main location for classes for the medical students of yesteryear.
The audience was welcomed to the University by Deputy Chancellor, Emeritus Professor Ann Sefton, also an alumna, and was addressed by Professor Bruce Robinson, Acting Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Dr Barry Catchlove, President of the Medical Graduates Association and by medical student Ryan Downey. The former Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, now Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Community), Professor Andrew Coats, was also in attendance. Musical accompaniment was provided by the multitalented first year medical student Ms Lisa Daniels.
“The event was a huge success”, said Professor Robinson, Acting Dean. “In this our 150th year it was an honour to host so many of our most senior alumni and have an opportunity to speak with many of them. We plan to hold similar events over the next few years, drawing our diverse alumni together to celebrate our rich history and to inform them of our future plans. Anyone who has studied at the University of Sydney has a soft-spot for its built and cultural heritage; it is a privilege to invite our alumni back to reconnect with it.”
Senior Alumni Lunch photos
1951 graduates celebrate 55 year reunion, November 2006
Our 55th Reunion was held at the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron on 3 November 2006. There were 95 alumni, 55 of whom were 1951 graduates, who had come from Sydney, rural NSW, interstate and overseas.
Our excellent Chairman, Harry Learoyd welcomed us all and John Roche offered a toast to absent friends. After a delicious lunch Harry called on Ian Fitzpatrick to offer a toast to the University and the Faculty. Ian pointed out that our graduation was 100 years to the day since the first meeting of the Senate and that 2006 represented 150 years since the first four students began studying Medicine in a cottage on Parramatta Road. The University is now one of the top medical universities in the world, fulfilling the hopes expressed at the Inaugural Ceremony in 1852. Doug Caspersonn followed with reminiscences of people and events throughout our course and careers.
We were entertained by the vastly different career experiences of three members of the 1951 class – Glen Duncan, Eleanor Knox-Longmire and Archy Kalokerinos. Glen Duncan worked as a psychiatrist in the United States where he was involved in university teaching and research. He entertained us with lighthearted reminiscences, to be expected from the composer of the wonderful lyrics we all sang so enthusiastically at our 4th Year undergraduates’ dinner in 1948. He also reminded us to remember the luminaries of our past and spoke of his original meeting, as a new psych resident, with the famed surgeon doctor Charles Mayo of that Clinic who observed that they “needed psychiatrists there to take care of the faculty”.
Eleanor Knox-Longmire spent most of her working life with the United Mission in Nepal where she spent years in a remote village accessible only by walking track. She recounted amusing experiences of the Nepali people whom she came to love.
Archy Kalokerinos worked in remote areas of NSW caring for Indigenous people. By administering vitamin C by injection to sick babies he reduced the infant mortality from one of the highest in the world to one of the lowest. He experienced many hardships but his care and understanding of Indigenous people has never faltered.
We all agreed that this meeting of old friends had been a most rewarding experience.
Dorothy Morrison (Butt)
Read more about the experiences of Archy Kalokerinos and
Eleanor Knox-Longmire
1961 graduates celebrate 45 year reunion, September 2006
On 24 September 2006, 45 years after we graduated, 78 of us gathered at St Andrew’s College for a delightful lunch. Joan Farewell (nee Mowles) and Jael Robinsohn flew in from London, and Don Wilson from California; 11 came from interstate, 19 from regional NSW and 45 from Sydney.
The occasion was notable for its warmth and sense of comradeship. Saxon White was his inimitable self as Master of Ceremonies. Former editor of Honi Soit Jim Friend gave a witty toast to the University, to which David Brender responded splendidly. A table-by-table 'roll call' added to the general hilarity, and the occasion wound up as we sang old university songs, led by Judith Maynard on the piano. The University College venue provided a convivial atmosphere with excellent food and wine, beautifully presented.
Smaller groups also gathered over the weekend: the girls over a very long lunch a day earlier, and various hospital groups at other times. Since our last reunion five years ago more have retired and many are working part-time, but some continue full time. Many of the 33 who sent apologies couldn’t come because they were travelling overseas. Three who live permanently overseas (Robert Dick in the UK and Marcia Glass (Brotchie) and Magda Polenz (Überall) in the USA) hope to join us for our 50th reunion.
Of the attendees, roughly equal numbers had worked in general practice, surgery and its sub-specialities, or adult and paediatric medicine. Fewer practised psychiatry, pathology, anaesthetics, obstetrics and gynaecology, public health and/or administration and dermatology. Some were rounding off their careers by moving into medico-legal practice, some had moved into other careers. The 'roll call' brought to light an intriguing range of hobbies. While Saxon no longer plays international rugby, he and many others are enthusiastically involved in an amazing range of sporting activities which include surfing, sailing, skiing, yoga, the usual golf, tennis, swimming, fishing, bush-walking, rowing, jogging, bowls … and piloting one’s own aeroplane. Archaeology, ancient history, gardening, photography, parlare italiano piu bene, music of many types, bridge, films, baby-sitting, loafing and wasting time were also mentioned, and one surgeon has become a cabinet-maker. Frank Lumley won the grandchildren stakes with 13.
We remembered our 40 classmates who have died. Almost $1700 was donated to the Medical Graduates Association Scholarship Fund. David Brender and Mal Stuart volunteered to organise our 50th reunion in 2011.
Margaret Burgess (Menser) & Jill Forrest
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St Paul's & Faculty of Medicine 150th Anniversary dinner, August 2006
In recognition of the 150th anniversary of the Faculty of Medicine and of St Paul’s College, the annual College Medicine Faculty Dinner was held on 21 August in the College Hall. The Faculty and College hosted a special candlelit dinner in Hall, with festal academic dress. In attendance were the Dean of the Faculty, Professor Bruce Robinson, members of his staff, 52 Pauline doctors, seven medical students, the Warden and Fellows of the College and about one hundred College residents. After dinner the Dean gave an address in the Junior Common Room, outlining exciting Faculty developments whereby a rather parochial outlook has become more international to the benefit of the Faculty as well as developing countries in our region. Afterwards drinks were taken in the Salisbury – which would have pleased Charles greatly.
During the dinner the Warden of St Paul’s College, Reverend Ivan Head made an excellent speech, remarking that, "As long as there has been a Medical School at the University of Sydney, students from St Paul’s have been a part of it. Since 1888 some 600 Paulines have graduated from medicine and many of them have made tremendous contributions to the study and practice of medicine".
There are currently 307 living Pauline medical graduates of whom 19 are professors of medicine at various universities and 16 are holders of an MD degree.
St Paul's & Faculty of Medicine anniversary dinner photos
1948 graduates celebrate 150 years of Medicine, June 2006
On Saturday 17th of June 2006 a party of graduates and spouses met at the Anderson Stuart Building and proceeded to the Darlington Centre for an informal lunch.
Earlier in the day we had visited the Universities Museums and Collections to see the portraits of distinguished faculty members and graduates and an amazing display of monographs and publications from the faculty staff and graduates, including ‘150 years and 150 firsts’ and 150 years of the Faculty of Medicine launched at the Anderson Stuart on June 13th. We also saw among other interesting specimens, a flask of bouillon sent by Louise Pasteur to Professor St Vincent Welsh, the fossil skeleton of the forelimb Pliosaurus macromcrus, and the anatomical model Gladys in the Macleay Museum.
In the University Art Gallery there is a splendid exhibition of drawings and paintings by Professor Wilkinson, who as University Architect and Professor of Architecture laid out and built much of the University landscape and buildings in the 1920s. In the Nicholson we saw marvelous antiquities from ancient Egypt and the Greaco - Roman world.
There were apologies and messages from Dick Finch, Bill Charlton, Bruce Hartnett, Tom Nash (overseas), Judith Weaver (interstate) and John Connors, Jack Zamel and Mrs Trudi Nash (late John Nash). During the week of events around the 150th Anniversary of the Faculty, Professors Marmot and Chalmers and Dr Norman Swan were awarded MD honoris causa; Professor Marmot gave a seminar on medicine and social class; there were seminars on the state of research in cancer infection, genetic studies and neuroscience given by present Faculty members and distinguished graduates eg Gus Nossal, and invited speakers from other universities.
Musicus Medicus gave a concert at the Conservatorium, Professor Coats and the Dean of Studies at the Conservatorium announced a new combined degree course, the B Music Studies/MBBS. All together a memorable week!
At lunch and elsewhere, future gatherings/reunions were discussed. When would we next meet? Will it be before our 60th Anniversary Reunion in 2008? Put a note in your 2007 diary planner to talk to others and make enquiry calls and suggestions. It can be fun. Et haec olim meminisse iuvabit!
Harding Burns
1946 graduates celebrate 60 year reunion, May 2006
This was held at the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron, Kirribilli, on 5th May 2006. There were 59 guests present and 43 of these were graduates from our year. We gathered at 11 am for about one hour before the luncheon for a ”talkfest” and drinks. The Chairman of the Organising Committee, Lew Abbott unfortunately was admitted to hospital a few days before the reunion but we were pleased to hear that he has progressed well. Barry White was another late cancellation.
Jack Blackman was the Master of Ceremonies and after welcoming the guests he mentioned the deceased members who now number seventy-one. We had a minute of silence to remember them.
There was an extraordinary array of fine food to cater for everyone’s tastes and this was accompanied by excellent wines and later by coffee The noise level was very high and reflected the “getting together again” feeling of the group. After the main meal there were other speakers. Kevin White and Peter Rogers set the pace. Kevin told two anecdotes, while Peter reminded us of our abbreviated medical course and told of the difficulties, sadness and pressures of being students during the War years. Other speakers included John Austin, Roger Davidson, Alan Grant, Bill Gilmour, Harry Moore, Neville Newman, Steve Richardson, Grosvenor Burfitt- Williams and Warwick Williams. Each speaker added to the quality of the reunion with anecdotes, stories of their medical lives, of our teachers and of many of their own problems as students and doctors. As we fell into small groups, much more was recalled. Many messages were received from those unable to attend.
Our thanks go to own specialist photographer, Dick Stephens, who took the group photographs. The surplus of money after all the costs were covered has been distributed to three charitable organisations; The Medical Benevolent Association of NSW, the Medical Graduates Association and to the Fistula Hospital in Ethiopia which was co-founded by Cath Hamlin (nee Nicholson) from our year and her late husband Reginald.
By a show of hands at the end of the day it was clear that all our members wanted a further luncheon and this is to be held in 2008.
Alan Young - for the Executive Committee
1976 graduates celebrate 30 year reunion, May 2006
The 1976 graduates celebrated their thirty year reunion at The Sebel - Kirkten Park, Hunter Valley on the 6th of May. The following extract comes from a talk given by Patrick Giltrap on life as a country GP.
My theme for the talk is: “Which of you, having an ass or an ox that has fallen into a pit, will not immediately pull him out?” - I will return to that.
I have been asked to talk about life as a country G.P. What is so different? One aspect is home visits. In particular I have developed an interest in Palliative Care, care of the dying and the concept of “a good death”. There is an ideal set up in a small country hospital where family and nurses can share in the care of the dying. I get requests from patients who wish to die at home and this is relatively easy to manage if they live in town. Long acting opioids, syringe drivers, subcutaneous needles all make pain management more effective. However, if the patient lives out of town more imagination and lateral thinking is required. A few years ago I had a request from a woman in her sixties who lived several kilometres away – drive fifty kilometres north to Tooraweenah, turn east towards Gulargambone, over the Ullamugullah creek for another twenty kilometres. She wished to die at home – I said “ok we will give it a go” and we loaded up the hospital truck with the bed, oxygen concentrator and all the paraphernalia, with the help of friends and family, teaching them to give subcutaneous injections. This lady died at home – peacefully – “a good death”. I used to visit two, sometimes three times a week, a 140km round trip.
Some of you will be familiar with the words “I was sick and you visited me”. On my part, it involved time but the real problem were the forces of nature – in the country you are said to be close to nature – sometimes too close for comfort. You have to contend with wildlife on the road of all sorts – kangaroos, the odd sheep or cow that has jumped the fence and got into the long paddock, suicidal depressed bunny rabbits that throw themselves at you. Even echidnas that, despite every effort to avoid, puncture our tyres with their spines.
However, the times I was visiting this lady we had a locust plague and I had a brand new car with less than 1000km on the clock. The locusts were in swarms of biblical proportions and my car ended up plastered in cakes of sticky locusts – very difficult to clean off - hopeless task because, despite cleaning, you knew that in a few days the car would be plastered again. I took heart one day when, outside Rohr’s produce store, I saw a smartly dressed couple trying to fit a wire mesh over the radiator grill of their Rolls Royce. Plagues spare no one – the good and the great, however so humble, however so plain – there is no escape.
The one plague that was bigger than big was the mice. This occurred in 1984, one year after I had come to Gilgandra and just after I moved into my new house. My rural pathway was very nearly cut short. For once I sympathise with the Egyptians in the book of Exodus.
People talk about the romance of the country – Henry Lawson or Banjo Patterson – I never can remember – spoke of “the vision splendour of the sunlit plains extended and at night the wondrous glory of the everlasting stars” and Dorothea McKellar talks of “sunburnt country, drought and flooding rains”. I was prepared for that – 1998 was a soggy year followed by mosquitoes and Ross River fever but nothing prepared me for the mice!
Maybe it was revenge for those horrid little experiments we did in pharmacology, feeding mice with charcoal, injecting them with opioids, killing them (I will never say how as there are juveniles present), cutting them open to measure how far the charcoal had moved down the intestines. I remember Helen Jagger rescuing one by sneaking it into her lab coat pocket and smuggling it out of the lab. Well that mouse’s descendents returned with a vengeance.
They got everywhere – in the ceilings, in the walls. It is said that if there is a possum on the roof, it sounds as if it is in the ceiling and, if there is a possum in the ceiling, it sounds as if it is in bed with you.
Well – the mice were in bed with you. The final insult was to wake up one morning to find mouse droppings on the pillow next to your head. It made you reach for the serepax – only to find that the mice had got there first and eaten the serepax as well.
Killing mice – this dominated life. There were school competitions to invent better mousetraps. They ate the cheese without springing the trap. We melted cheese on, we tied cheese on, used peanut butter. The mice ate Ratsack for breakfast, dinner, lunch and tea.
Everything smelt of naphthalene and moth balls – even the food had a flavour of moth balls. We used steel-wool to block every crack or vent. I spent a large sum of money buying a beeper that supposedly emitted a high-pitch beep to deter mice – all it did was interfere with the TV signal, and I swear I could see mice running across the TV picture.
One day, feeling in a Mendelian frame of mind, I planted some sweet peas and, like all good gardeners, sprinkled some snail bait around. Next morning I got up to inspect my seedlings to find in the flower bed - dead mice – Eureka! Stone dead – they had not even got out of the flower bed – instant death! I rushed to find the packet – anticholinesterase. However, there was one drawback – death was so instantaneous. If there is one thing that is worse than a mouse in the house it is a dead mouse in the house. If one dies behind a cupboard or skirting board the smell is unimaginable, putrid – no amount of perfume or unguents will rid the house of the smell. So snail bait was strictly for outdoors only.
So I plotted a plan – I rushed down to the local IGA store and bought up all the stock of snail bait to be had, smiled at the girl at the checkout as I staggered out under the carton loads of snail bait, weakly, saying “ I had a bit of a snail problem”. I proceeded to sprinkle a magic circle of snail bait around the house. Finally I had a levy bank of snail bait to protect me from the flood of mice – at least I was safe!
This worked so well it left me with bucketloads of dead mice – indeed wheel barrow loads. I had to dig mass graves down in the forest at the end of my garden. I only hope a passing satellite doesn’t take photos as it will reveal mysterious areas of disturbed earth.
This continued till the frosts came in June and the mice disappeared. Local sages say a mouse plague occurs every eleven years, others say every seventeen years – we are long overdue – but I am well prepared. I have hoarded snail bait in my shed and I can repeat my experiment. I can publish in some learned Journal such as “Mouse and Garden”.
Two phenomena occur – sometimes at night, there comes in my dreams, a super mouse that is immune to anticholinesterase. The last time I checked my stockpile of snail bait, the staghorn beetles were feasting on it – but that is another story.
To return to my original quote “Which of you, having an ass or ox that has fallen into the pit, will not immediately pull him out?” This morning I went for a walk to get inspiration for this talk. Down at the creek, I found a cow stuck in the mud up to her belly. So, while some of you were out treading the wine trail, I was chasing up farmers to drag the cow out with ropes and four wheel drives. Otherwise we may have been eating her tonight. Even at reunions we are never far from nature.
Thank you Connie and Anne for organising this weekend and thank you Connie for asking me to speak.
Patrick Giltrap
Orthopaedic Surgeons Reunion, April 2006
On April 8th, 54 orthopaedic surgeons who are graduates of our University gathered for lunch in the Anderson Stuart Building, as part of the sesquicentenary celebrations. Drinks were taken in the brilliant autumn sunshine in the courtyard where David Sonnabend welcomed guests.
These included former teachers, Philomena McGrath and Bob Munro, together with Mrs Ann Macintosh and Mr Peter Mills.
The toast to the University at the luncheon in the east-west ground floor corridor was given by the distinguished senior graduate and University benefactor, Dr C Murray Maxwell. That the Faculty of Medicine and the Department of Anatomy was proposed by Dr Brian Hsu, an accredited orthopaedic trainee and the most junior prosector of yesteryear.
The occasion raised $5,000 towards the shortly-to-be-commenced restoration of the Wilson Anatomy Museum. A similar gathering in 1990 raised funds for the restoration of the portraits of Professors Hunter and Wilson which now adorn the ground floor corridor.
1943 graduates celebrate their 63 Years Reunion, March 2006
Well, we did it again. The 1943 graduates held their 63 year reunion in March 2006, making up for the fact that our first reunion was 20 years after graduation . We have declined in numbers again what with age, disability and distance. Twelve were able to attend including 8 of our graduates and we had 23 apologies. Some were actually too busy with other engagements to make it. We are now meeting annually and we felt that if we could last this long we could probably go another year. So in spite of a few walking sticks, wheelchairs, joint replacements, cardiac surgery and hearing aids we may meet again next year. As has become a habit, we met at the Royal Sydney Yacht Club for lunch. It was a beautiful day, weather was perfect and the harbour never looked better.
Conversation turned on our senility and disabilities, and the array of diagnoses and medications unknown in our day. Age is a great leveller. Most of us have reached the stage of yearly driving tests, and some have had to give up driving. But we also acknowledged that this year was the celebration of 150 years of the establishment of the Medical Faculty, and that we have participated in Medicine for 68 of those years, hard to believe. In fact this is also more than half the time since the opening of the Sydney University Medical School in 1883. We had gathered some books on the history of our hospitals and were amused at the photographs of early graduates, replete with bowler hats, waistcoats. watch-chains and canes. No women of course.
We remembered all those who were no longer with us. Some recalled camping trips, sports fields, hospital days, decisions about the future on return from WW2 and what granchildren and great grandchildren are up to. To those who had sent apologies, sorry you could not make it, but we send our best wishes for your health and comfort. Please contact us if you have somehow missed out. You may hear from us again next year.
As a result of the day we made donations to the Medical Graduates Association and the Medical Benevolent Society.
Stefania Siedlecky
1986 graduates celebrate 20 years, March 2006
Anticipating the twenty year reunion conjured visions of middle age - most of us would be forty-something. Most would have partnered, created families, some would have divorced and possibly re-partnered. Careers should be at or near their peak or on a comfortable plateau, homes would be renovated, children would be doing well at school and some considering careers in medicine themselves, or not. Middle age also has its own aesthetic - the six-pack-turned-spare-tyre among the men; the heading-south-pear-shape and ‘tuckshop arms’ among the women; receding hairlines; grey hair possibly badly masked by permanent dyes. Middle age can also be a time for cynicism, disillusionment, a regression to adolescence. How would we all see and relate to one another after twenty years, with all that had happened in the meantime? There was some trepidation too about whether we would actually recognise each other. Many of us confessed to having dug out our Year Books to do a last minute cram of who’s who, and some actually brought theirs along on the night.
Choosing to hold the reunion in the Holme Building was the first decision of the Organising Committee (a team of keen nostalgics including Sharon Reid, Susanne Benjamin, Ben Balzer, Melissa Kang, Bijou Blick, Damien Boyd, Henry Woo, Damien Bray, Bill Munro, Mandy Ng, Mary Dobbie and Karl Kruszelnicki – many of these were also involved in the 10 year Reunion organising committee). The Holme Building, formerly known as “The Union”, was completed in 1913 as the first purpose built building for the men’s student union and was intended to “serve as the centre of University life by providing amenities to foster social intercourse…”. The Refectory, where the reunion took place, was built in the 1920s in Mediterranean style, and the forecourt and loggia were added in 1940-1 “designed to enjoy a vista across the campus…” Despite the large proportions and dark timber panelling in the main dining hall, the style of the building does create a casual friendly ambience and people moved comfortably in and out of the dining hall and verandah throughout the evening.
One hundred and forty people attended with some travelling from rural NSW, interstate and overseas. Ferdinand Chu won special mention for travelling the furthest - from Hong Kong. We received apologies from a number of people, most of whom were living overseas. Allowing for accompanying partners who were not 1986 medical graduates, this was a participation rate of 44%.
The most striking first impression was how great everyone looked. Average BMI well within the healthy range, the men still looked great in a tux and the women redefined glamour. For those who were experiencing any sort of mid life crisis it was obviously doing wonders for them. What also struck immediately was an incredible sense of warmth and goodwill. People seemed genuinely happy to see one another, even if there was nothing left in common between them except memories of a few youthful years spent studying together. Emails which came to the Committee after the event described people’s experiences as ‘emotional’ and ‘moving’.
The formal part of the evening was chaired by Damien Boyd, our reliable and perennially entertaining MC. We had opted not for any after dinner speeches but rather, a quick summary of a pre-reunion graduates’ survey and viewing a DVD put together for the 1986 reunion by Greg Wilkins (a medical graduate of another year and friend of committee members). The DVD featured hundreds of amusing and mildly incriminating graduand photographs from the years 1981 - 86 against a soundtrack of 80’s music. We also had a display of ‘memorabilia’ outside the dining room, with emails from those who couldn’t attend, old and more recent photographs of graduates and their families, and some amusing pieces of miscellany, such as a copy of the front page of old 2nd year anatomy exam papers. The graduates’ survey had elicited a rather pathetic response rate (<5%) but findings were still interesting suggesting that most graduates were breeding at the average National rate, a significant proportion were divorced and some were no longer working in medicine.
We had also decided on a live band to get people up and dancing - a tradition started at the 10 year reunion and one which some of us are not keen to drop as long as our joints still move). The band ‘Blue Train Band’ were very good - although most opted to stand out on the verandah and keep chatting with only the diehard dancers kicking up their heels into the wee hours (perhaps age is starting to affect our ear drums after all!).
The most telling sign of our age was the “family day” that had also been planned on the following day at Centennial Park. On the weekend of our 10 year reunion, most who had attended the reunion dinner also turned up on the Sunday with little ones in tow (or in utero) for a picnic. This time around, only two graduates turned up: Ben Balzer and Damien Bray (both committee members) enjoyed a male bonding session on their own. Perhaps age is also affecting our ability to cope with morning after??
Discussion is already underway for a 25 year reunion. Many people requested more notice, and a full weekend of planned activity so that those travelling long distances could really make the most of it. Hopefully, we’ll get more along next time. Catching up can be so much fun!
Melissa Kang and Sharon Reid
1966 graduates celebrate 40 years, January 2006
More than 140 of us celebrated our 40-year reunion, held at the Manly Pacific on 27-28 January. We came from near and far, including 10 from overseas (Canada, England, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand and USA) and another 30 or so from interstate. As well as the reunion dinner, we also held our customary one and a half day conference.
Our conference consisted of sessions on changes in general practice and in specialty practice over 40 years and a symposium on health care and education. Our proceedings were greatly enlivened by starting each half-day with 7 or 8 talks on passions and hobbies outside our professional work. In between numerous retirement farewells at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead, Maureen Rogers managed to convince many in our year to speak on passions as diverse as photography, writing poetry, art collections, travel, Inuit sculptures, old maps, breeding racehorses and testing what makes them tick, wine-growing, the Royal Flying Doctor service, building and flying your own aeroplane, as well as more physical challenges such as rowing, gliding , sailing in the English Channel, heli-skiing and Zen golf. One extroverted surgeon, seemingly fixated in his student life of the early 1960s, still plays regularly in a rock band and showed a video to convince any doubters! In all, more than 50 spoke during the conference and dinner. Amidst all the merriment, we raised almost $25,000 for student scholarships.
Our extended weekend together gave real opportunities to catch up with old friends and to forge new friendships. Even after 6 or 7 years together in student days, there is no way you get to know the more than 300 in your year! And that was what was left after 50 per cent had failed in the pre-clinical years!!
Paul Lancaster