AFTER more than three decades of service, celebrated Horsham surgeon Ian Campbell is trading his scalpel for a set of golf clubs as he calls and end to his career.
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Dr Campbell first moved to Horsham in 1987, serving as a surgeon, skin cancer educator and president of the Wimmera Health Care Group's board.
He remembered how different Horsham, technology and the medical profession were in those early years.
"When I came to Horsham there were no mobile phones, no internet," he said.
"We still had little hospitals in places like Minyip. Local governments were still really local with the Arapilles shire and Dimboola Shire.
"The communication has changed dramatically. Some of it is good actually and some of it is not so good, the COVID pandemic in 1987 would be run very differently today."
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Working as a doctor in the regional town of Horsham presented an array of challenges and surprises.
Dr Campbell remembered one incident in particular, where a child suffered an accidental gunshot wound in Warracknabeal.
"Dr Williams, who was the anesthetist and I ended up going to Warracknabeal at about 198 km/h in a police car," he said.
"We had to do some operations on the kids in Warracknabeal and then in Horsham. He has made a complete recovery from that.
"One of the things about Horsham is that you never quite know what will happen. Fortunately that doesn't happen every day."
You just have to adjust. It is a different step in life. Instead of doing colonoscopies in the morning I am out with the kids riding bikes
Dr Campbell also worked in the space of skin cancer awareness throughout his career - a common issue in the Wimmera.
"That is because you have predominantly light-skinned people in a world where there is sunshine and high ultraviolet light," he said.
As part of this awareness campaign, Dr Campbell went around Horsham's schools and delivered lessons on the importance of sun safety.
This was at the start of the Slip, Slop, Slap campaign and knowledge of the risk of skin cancer was not as common as it is now.
"Myself and my colleagues have tried very hard to get people to slip, slop, slap with education sessions at primary schools and secondary schools," he said.
"With some success, but not an awful lot of success because kids are kids and they will do what they want to."
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"We went to high schools and got the hat-wearing rate for teachers up from near zero to 40 or 50 per cent, and for kids from near zero to still near zero.
"But I guess it is still good that some people have responded to it anyway."
During his time at the Wimmera Base Hospital, Dr Campbell oversaw the training of many medical students.
He said it was rewarding to see how far those who learnt under him had gone in their careers.
"Quite a lot of our senior nurses were student nurses who I gave lectures to and watched them develop their careers in their own ways," he said.
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"There's a senior thoracic surgeon at the Royal Melbourne; he was a registrar here. There's a senior vascular surgeon at Royal Melbourne who was a registrar here and a senior plastic surgeon who was a registrar.
"Most of them did six-month terms in Horsham and that I am sure helped them in their career. It is very exciting to look over the years at how much people have achieved."
In 2018, Dr Campbell's services to the medical field were recognised with an Order of Australia Medal.
Throughout his career in Horsham, Dr Campbell said his goal was to make the Wimmera Base Hospital the best regional hospital in Australia.
"We have been able to progressively build Horsham Hospital. It was a good hospital when I got here and the world has changed since, we have added new services, a pacemaker service, lung cancer work in Horsham," he said.
I think to be successful you have to be involved. You have to be involved in the community, you have to listen to the community
"When we came here, there was almost no oncology work done in Horsham and very little chemo work done in Horsham. Now there is a very busy chemotherapy unit.
"That has taken lots of time, lots of people to build that up. That has taken commitment from the organisation and from the nursing staff, doctors in Horsham and in Ballarat."
Dr Campbell has spent his time playing with his children and grandchildren in retirement, which he said was a change of pace from his life as a surgeon.
"You just have to adjust. It is a different step in life. Instead of doing colonoscopies in the morning I am out with the kids riding bikes," he said.
He said community involvement and speaking up for what you believe in was key to a successful and happy life.
"I think to be successful you have to be involved. You have to be involved in the community, you have to listen to the community," he said.
"If you think something is wrong, you need to speak out at the appropriate level, whether that is a minor thing or at a council level, a hospital level, or a health department level.
"If you see a problem and make people aware of it, people can do their best to solve the problem. If they are not aware of it, they can't do anything.
"It takes a lot of time and patience to work through things."
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