For the last year or so I have been clearing out my mum and dad's house in Kew, as my mother died last year after a short stay in care, while Dad is in aged care due to physical weakness. My brother-in-law John and his wife Lynn helped me significantly with removing items from the house and taking them to Op Shops (Thank-You!). This included a large number of books.
Long after I thought all the books were gone, and amid a family kerfuffle about who was to attend a Christmas gathering (if you want to start organising something do it by email and not by word of mouth!) Lynn rang me to say she had rescued a few photos and personal items from Mum and Dad's stuff. I was volunteering at the Wecycle bike shed at the time and Lynn offered to drop everything off at my place, which she subsequently did. I stashed most of the photos in with the large box of other photos that came from Mum and Dad's place, but a ring bound booklet attracted my attention.
It took a while to work out what it was - really it seemed like a series of curriculum vitae and recollections from a group of Melbourne doctors called The Cleveland Fellows. It is full of source material from doctors without much connecting narration, but after taking it to Dad to read (he had forgotten its existence), then discussing it with him and reading it again myself, I can fill in the gaps a bit.
The story goes back to the Second World War where a US Army medical unit called the fourth general hospital established itself in Melbourne. A wikiPedia page devoted to this unit is at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4th_General_Hospital_(United_States_Army) , and this page along with its references were part of my research. The unit arrived in Melbourne at the end of February 1942 and on 12th of May 1942 the unit moved into the Royal Melbourne Hospital building. The booklet I have was compiled by the physician Tom Hurley for a 60th anniversary dinner to commemorate the unit’s occupation of the Royal Melbourne Hospital.
Subsequent to the fourth general Hospital unit returning to Cleveland, Melbourne doctors applied for and were sponsored to leave and work in Cleveland for a year. These exchanges took place between 1949 and 1991. Doctors were of my dad's generation (Born 1931) or slightly older through to the most recent visitors who were not much older than me (born 1960) .
The organizer of the dinner was the physician Tom Hurley (Dad recalls endocrinologist Ian “Skip” Martin was also an organiser) and the dinner was held on 9th of May 2002. Tom had requested curriculum Vitae and recollections of Cleveland from all who attended and compiled the replies in a booklet, presumably distributed to attendees. Contributions range from curriculum vitae only to single page letters with a paragraph or two of Cleveland recollections to 2 or 3 pages of Cleveland recollections. Most interesting were accounts about cultural life in Cleveland including playing and hearing music, and in Melbourne, where one doctor laments AFL club Essendon’s lack of form!
On the Melbourne side of the exchange Pincus Taft is mentioned often and I recall Dad was an associate of one of his relatives, the dermatologist Eric Taft. On the Cleveland side Max Miller who was concerned with diabetes is mentioned often, but I couldn't find him in the list of officers in the unit's history which is here https://web.archive.org/web/20120718035458/http://www.med-dept.com/unit_histories/4_gen_hosp.php
It has been interesting and fun to read this book and to unravel the small mystery about it. It's been a good way to connect with my Dad. My son is a medical researcher with overseas contacts and I plan to pass the “Tale of two hospitals” on to him soon. He had previously snapped up several medical histories and medical biography from Mum and Dads collection.
By Stephen Nurse, eleventh of November 2024
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