By Pam Kiriakidis
Following his last operating session and farewells from his colleagues, Doctor Michael Wilson retired as ear, nose and throat surgeon at Kilmore and District Health earlier this month.
When asked about how he was feeling on his last shift, Dr Wilson said he might have an answer the following day, considering it felt like any other workday since becoming a qualified medical officer in 1971.
“I should feel happy, I should feel sad, I should feel a sense of loss, but it’s another workday. Come and ask me again tomorrow and I will probably feel sad and want to come back to work,” he said.
Dr Wilson joined the team in 1994 and has continued to work with the familiar faces and friendly staff he now considered his life friends.
“I look forward to coming to work every day because we have a collegiate staff and we enjoy our work greatly. The staff at the hospital are extremely efficient and dedicated,” he said.
“There’s a great need for ear, nose and throat services here in Kilmore and it’s a wonderful hospital in which to work”.
Before starting at Kilmore, Dr Wilson was a consultant at the Austin and Northern hospitals from 1980 and was head of the unit at the Austin hospital from 1995 to 2005.
Dr Wilson continued to work closely with the Austin and Northern hospital, undertaking a large surgical load that increased greatly over the past couple of years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The move to Kilmore’s hospital was to work with locals, and develop the centre. Dr Wilson has watched the hospital’s overall improvement since walking through the doors.
He said when he started 30-years-ago, there was a small, dedicated team of multi-tasking personnel, which had superseded with great staff who were highly trained and dedicated.
“It was different then, there was a small team, they weren’t as good as the present staff, or well trained, but they multitasked,” he said.
“Nowadays with modern regulations and so forth, people have the exact training.
“With the excellent administration of the place, the place has grown to quite easily cope with the population boom.”
Dr Wilson’s role at the hospital consisted of consulting patients and surgical procedures.
It is estimated he has performed about 6000 operations and consulted with at least 20,000 patients over that time. He describes it as a reasonable workload for most surgeons.
“A normal consulting day may see a variety of patients ranging from a 12-month-old baby up to a 99-year-old man and the whole spectrum in between. That makes his workload interesting, not just doing the same thing day after day,” he said.
To acknowledge his service, Dr Wilson was awarded the rural surgery award through the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons.
In retirement, Dr Wilson will continue farming at Willowmavin where he has lived for more than 40 years, reflecting on his days as a surgeon to the region’s residents.
“We don’t know what the future holds, if someone is in need, I may consider coming out of retirement temporarily,” he said.
Ear nose and throat services will continue at Kilmore District Health under Dr David Rowe and Dr Anita Yuen.
