Rachel Carter “ WHEN I talk to medical

students about iron lungs , they look at me like I ’ m on another planet .”

Iron lungs were once clinical reality for Dr John Wiseman .

As you may guess , Dr Wiseman is one of Australia ’ s older practitioners — who recently decided to hang up his stethoscope 72 years after graduating from the University of Melbourne .

specialists around ; hospitals were far away .

“ There were all sorts of things that we did : treating MVA victims , delivering babies , responding to night calls , a lot of anaesthetics . It was a very varied life .”

GPs back then might spend one or two hours with each patient per consultation , not six or 20 minutes framed by Medicare .

But there was also very

little care for mental health issues .

“ To me watching over the years , it ’ s almost been like a new science developed where we had to build up an understanding of what society is doing to people and how people are reacting .”

He has done stints as a consultant to Victoria ’ s Department of Health , spent three years practising in Canada and organised a team

of on-call GPs for attending disasters .

Asked for the secret to his longevity , he laughs : “ That ’ s the $ 64 question .”

He plans to keep busy with volunteering , studying and perhaps taking up lawn bowls .

“ I ’ ve just finished my cigar for the morning ; I ’ m sitting here with my daughter , who is grinning at me ; and so we go on .”

Dr John Wiseman .

“ I want to hand it over to

the next generation ,” he says .

Several years ago , his wife ,

Moreen , died and he moved into a unit at a retirement village despite not being retired .

But even then , every Mon-

ICS / LABA / LAMA IN A pMDI 1

day and Thursday , he would

jump into a taxi with his pug ,

Martha , drop her off at dog

daycare and then head over to

his practice in St Kilda .

“ I am loosely a geriatrician

now . The reason is simple : as I

grew older , my patients grew

older too ,” the 96-year-old says .

His early work , back in the

1950s , involved dealing with

Australia ’ s polio epidemics

and their sequelae at Fairfield

Infectious Diseases Hospital .

‘ There were all sorts of things that we did . It was a very varied life .’

He remembers the “ easy ”

patients , who contracted

polio and recovered .

And he remembers the

others — those left with

severe disabilities .

“ The most difficult area , of

course , was those who were

so severely disabled that they

were in the old-fashioned

iron lungs . Five people on my

ward were essentially living

in wooden boxes . That was

hard to see .”

Upon leaving Fairfield Hospital

, Dr Wiseman secured a job

as a ship ’ s doctor so he could

sail the four weeks to England

to work as a registrar .

“ There were only 100 passengers

, and the crew were

pretty healthy people , so

there wasn ’ t really a lot of

work involved ,” he recalls .

“ Mostly , it was the crew

who got pissed every night

and would come in the next

day with a hangover .”

His treatment for that was

straightforward and probably

has not changed much since :

“ Get stuck into the fluids , and

don ’ t do it again !”

But he returned to Australia

to work as a GP in Victoria ’ s

Gippsland region .

“ It was a hell of a lot different

to what it is now .

“ GPs used to do a bit of

everything — we didn ’ t have