By Shelby Brooks
A popular doctor from the Bunyip Medical Clinic has been honoured for his commitment to the medical profession, having served the community for over 40 years.
Dr Geoffrey Campbell received a Length of Service honour as part of the 2021 Victorian Rural Health Awards.
“I was pleased to receive the award,” Dr Campbell said.
Ever humble though, Dr Campbell brushed off any suggestion the award was for anything other than his many years of doctoring.
“It’s only a length of service award,” he said.
“I try to keep up with what’s going on in medicine, I don’t just sit in my little rut even though I don’t know how much longer I will be a practitioner.
“40 years is a good innings isn’t it?”
Dr Campbell grew up in East Malvern but moved to Warragul when he opened his solo practice.
“Warragul is a beautiful place and it’s nice and close to Melbourne and has a good hospital. It was a good place to be,” he said.
Dr Campbell’s GP clinic was in a store just up from the Blue Dolphin Fish and Chip Shop.
“I came along as a solo practitioner, you didn’t have to worry about any permits or anything in those days,” Dr Campbell said.
“I rang up the shire council and said do I need to do anything special and they said no, go ahead mate good luck.”
As well as running the clinic, Dr Campbell delivered babies and did anaesthetics at the Warragul Hospital.
“I went up to the hospital and asked if I could do anaesthetics and I met the anaesthetist in the operating theatre and there was a guy having half his tongue cut off and he said, if you can finish this anaesthetic, we’ll see if you can go from there,” he recalled.
“It was a fairly bloody and gory procedure but I got the patient off the table alive and he said alright we’ll find some work for you.”
And the anaesthetist’s advice to the new doctor in town?
“Don’t kill anyone in your first year because they will run you out of town with pitchforks,” Dr Campbell laughed.
Dr Campbell had trained in England in anaesthetics.
“40 to 50 years ago doctors used to go to England, almost like it was finishing school,” he said.
“It’s a country with a high standard and a rich tradition in medicine. You go to a big hospital somewhere and you get to learn lots. That’s where I had learnt anaesthetics doing it for 18 months which was pretty good.
“After about a month they’d get you to do it by yourself if they thought you were trustworthy- things have changed!”
Anaesthetics became somewhat of a passion of Dr Campbell’s over the years.
“I used to really like doing anaesthetics, being really slick at it, I guess you’d say,” he said.
“Because you are taking a big responsibility putting someone off to sleep, they expect you to wake them up.”
Dr Campbell eventually gave up delivering babies, sick of the late nights.
“It was stressful and you had to get up in the middle of the night to do the deliveries,” he said.
“Women seem to have this sadistic pleasure of having their babies at night time- Just the way nature has made it!”
He made the switch to Bunyip Medical Centre when old friend and clinic owner Dr Mamdouh Georgy called on him for help in 2017.
“I said yeah I’ll come down and do one or two half days a week as long as you take a day off, which he doesn’t,” Dr Campbell said.
“Bunyip is a little sleepy hollow here. A hidden jewel a bit like Garfield as well.”
Dr Campbell studied medicine at Monash University, but didn’t always have the idea to become a doctor.
“I had all different thoughts, like most kids when they’re at school,” he said.
“When I think about it, I really didn’t know anything about doctoring apart from the fact I was very interested in the science side of things.
“All the different bits and pieces of information were really just fascinating.”
Deciding to become a GP was an easy decision though and a good match for Dr Campbell’s good nature and sense of humour.
“I actually like talking to people and you meet different people every day as a GP,” Dr Campbell said.
“You can talk about their particular health conditions but you usually have a chat about football, trends in women’s hair colouring you know, anything they want to talk about,” he said.
Be careful to only ask Dr Campbell about golf after he’s played a good game though.
“I had a game yesterday that was dreadful so I’ve decided to give it a rest for about a week or two. I was absolutely shocking,” he said.
“I’ll do some photography instead, which is another hobby- I like photography.”
Dr Campbell’s preference is landscapes and seascapes featuring rocks, boulders and trees on a film camera.
Beyond his immediate work keeping the community of Bunyip healthy, Dr Campbell is a member of Drouin’s St Vincent de Paul.
“That’s interesting because that gives me a completely different perspective that I’ve never had before about people living in poverty,” he said.
“You sort of know the statistics, how much they don’t earn, how many children they’ve got and their rates of illness but until you’ve gone into their houses and seen how they live I don’t think you really know that much about it.
“I think it does help me as a doctor. It makes you more compassionate and forgiving of people and more accepting of what they bring to the table. You can’t be too sort of judgemental or critical of any deficiencies.”
Dr Campbell also spent a lot of time with Warragul Junior Chamber (JC), a service club for young men that is now defunct in the area.
Junior Chamber originated from America for young men between 18 to 40 as a way to learn public speaking, public assistance and fundraising.
“Warragul JCs built a house at one stage and auctioned it and distributed the money for people who needed it,” he said.
Dr Campbell, a father of five and grandfather of five, also likes horse racing but is looking for someone to take a “hay eater” off his hands.
“I’ve got a share in a horse that in the last two races ran last,” he said.
“Do you know anyone who wants a horse?
“I’ve given up having a bet on him.”
