ANZSGM History Project Update
The positive progress mentioned last year was indeed stymied by the pandemic, interstate travel was restricted longer than I seem to have expected. This was particularly because Melbourne is the site of probably the most useful unexplored documents relating to the period prior to 1984, including the archives of the Australian Association of Gerontology.
One of the important tasks of the project is to update and correct existing historical records. Once finalized, many of these can return to the History pages on the website. A review of these documents shows that two are completed and six nearly so.
One of the areas of particular interest are details of Annual Scientific Meetings. Last year I reported that we had relatively detailed knowledge of most ASMs since the meeting in Adelaide in 1984. Looking at the records prior to this, following the inauguration of the Society in 1972, I was somewhat surprised to find that I have at least some information of scientific meetings in the 1970s but overall, none of 8 Annual Scientific Meetings. I trust that a visit to the AAG archives will help fill some of these gaps, as the Society meetings were largely held in conjunction with the AAG in this period. However, older members may come across some useful information and for this reason I advise that the missing years are: 1974 and 1975; 1977 and 1978 and the first four years of the 1980s (1980-1983).
One interesting document in the RACP archive, an Advance (sic) Program for the 1981 College ASM in Wellington (NZ) lists the Australian Geriatrics Society as attending, but there was no mention an AGS session in the final program.
I am now confident (one can never be certain concerning history) that I have identified all the Honorary Life Members of the Society. There have been 26 Honorary Life Memberships awarded, from 1991 to 2019, of whom 16 are living.
In working to identify all Honorary Life Members (HLMs), the most interesting was the case of Margaret Guthrie. Margaret was the first (and, as it happened, the only) life member of the New Zealand Geriatrics Society, a Public Health Physician who began working in the Health of Older People in 1973 and has wide interests, including in health policy and service development. When I began searching the Society’s records in the Sydney office in 2019, I found a letter from Margaret, written in 2008, two years after the amalgamation of the Australian and New Zealand Societies, accepting the ANZSGM’s offer of an Honorary Life Membership of the amalgamated Society. At that time, Dr Guthrie was not listed as an Honorary Life Member and I could find, and have still not found, formal evidence of her being awarded life membership. However, Margaret was one of a group of HLMs who contributed brief commentaries of their interests and work in geriatric medicine to a Newsletter in May 2009 (currently not available on the website) and we later discovered a list of HLMs in 2012 on which she was listed! Many of those who had been involved with the award could not recall how, or even whether, it had occurred.
This is a useful exemplar of the importance of accurate records, their proper maintenance and the fallibility of memory in busy people, even geriatricians!
As the current practice is to award medals to HLMs it was arranged for the New Zealand Division to present one to Margaret, who, in her mid-90s remains well and interested in gerontology, in part to compensate for having “lost” such a senior and respected member from the Society. The NZ Division has this in hand.
I will update members of the outcome of my Melbourne researches once I have managed them. As usual, can I remind you that I would welcome any memories, anecdotes, documents and photographs, however apparently trivial, you come across that you consider would be useful, especially about the early days of the Society.
Robert J Prowse
prowserj@bigpond.net.au
