ANZSGM History Project Update
by Robert J Prowse
prowserj@bigpond.net.au
As we are all too well aware, the corona virus pandemic continues to dog our paths, especially those leading between the Society’s Divisions. So, one brief visit to the excellent Melbourne ASM, but still no time for me to access the Melbourne archives.
In my March update, I commented that I was confident that I had identified all those who had been, or were still, Honorary Life Members of the Society. Fortunately, I qualified this by saying one could never be certain with history, because shortly afterwards I was inspecting a Newsletter of the Australian Geriatrics Society from April 1984, from papers of former President Bob Penhall, which mentioned that Honorary Life Membership was granted to Dr William John (Bill) Stevenson of Victoria that year. From Membership records, I was able to glean Dr Stevenson lived from 1912 to 2004. Apart from this, I know nothing about him and enquires to senior Victorian colleagues have not so far added anything to his history. If any senior Member has knowledge of this latest retrospective addition to our roll of Honorary Life Members, I would be very pleased to hear from you.
A second discovery concerned the R.M Gibson Prize, which is the longest awarded prize in the history of the Society. Named after Pioneer of Geriatric Medicine in Australia, Dr Richard Maxwell Gibson (1921-1980) who worked at Newcastle Hospital, the Prize is known to us as being awarded to the Advanced Trainee who is judged to have made the best presentation by an AT at the Annual Scientific Meeting. Terry Finnegan, another former President, has told me he was the first winner of the Gibson Prize, awarded in 1979 at an AGS session within the AAG Scientific Meeting in Perth. Incidentally, this a meeting for which we have no other details; it is to be hoped the AAG archives will help, when they can finally be examined!
However, the Advanced Trainee prize doesn’t seem to have been awarded in this way throughout its history. Looking at some AGS Federal Council records from the mid-1980s recently, I came across an extract concerning what was in this document called the Richard Gibson Prize (the exact title seems to have changed over time) and which states it will be awarded to the AT submitting the best report to the Specialist Advisory Committee in that year, provided it was “of a sufficient standard”. I don’t know how many Gibson Prizes were awarded using these criteria, indeed I am unaware of even the names of the Prize winners after Terry Finnegan 1979, until David Conforti, who won when he presented at a New Zealand Geriatrics Society meeting in Christchurch in 1989, in conjunction with the RACP, and not at the preceding AGS ASM in Melbourne.
There were no submissions for presentation at the Melbourne 1990 ASM, so no Gibson Prize was awarded. Ronald Criddle won in 1991 and Bernard Walsh in 1992. I have not yet been able to find the winner in 1993 but after this we have all the names for every meeting which was held.
Given the lack of surviving documentation, it would be helpful if any winner of the RM Gibson Prize from 1980 to 1993, apart from the three mentioned above, could let the Society know, perhaps through me, of the year of their award and whether it was awarded on the basis of their AT project or following presentation at an ASM. There is documentation that no award was made in 1986, so we are seeking nine names!
Closing the case of Margaret Guthrie CNZM
In the March Newsletter, there was an account of how a missing Honorary Life Member – Margaret Guthrie, was discovered by the History Project. To compensate for this administrative oversight, it was agreed to present Dr Guthrie with an Honorary Life Member medal, which is now a standard part of the recognition by the Society.
John Scott has informed us that Margaret was presented with the medal at the Auckland regional geriatricians’ Journal Club on 3rd May. He described Margaret, who is in her 90s, as “pretty robust”. She gave a short talk, mentioning the Healthy Ageing strategy, the development of which she led, and also some of the other issues she was involved in outside of geriatric medicine, while working at the Ministry of Health, such as equal pay for women and access to maternity services.
A suitably positive ending.
Image: Margaret Guthrie with her Honorary Life Member medal, with Graham Davison, also an HLM (left) and John Scott.
