I visited 145 Macquarie Street

At the suggestion of our College President, I visited the College library. It is not the sort of place I would usually frequent: picture musty old leather-bound books, dense wood panelling and an air of staleness—dare I say it—sadness. But I was in Sydney and somewhat at a loose end, so visit I did. I have been to 145 Macquarie on numerous occasions for Internal Medicine Journal (IMJ) board meetings and love the board room where our band of editors bring joy and I am never alone. Less so the library. I was warmly welcomed by Karen, but evidently she had more important guests elsewhere, and I was promptly left to my own devices. In contrast to the board room, the library was devoid of life. Around me sat silent shelves crammed with leather-bound tomes. Positioned on display here and there were medical implements from bygone eras. I have always found displays of these things more than slightly ghoulish. Images of inadequate anaesthesia spring to mind. Being of a slightly sensitive disposition, I find it deeply disconcerting to be viewing these sorts of implements. I actively seek to avoid such exposures. And then there were the black-and-white photographs of Australian doctors of old. Seemingly every one of them was a man with a ridiculous hat, all unsmiling, as was the expectation with photography of the time. How different, I thought, from my editorial team of today. The previous day had gone well. I had chaired my first IMJ Editorial Board meeting: the first person not named Jeff Szer to have done so for 21 years. My agenda, not the written pre-circulated one, but the real one that I told people about only on the day, was to make it about the people. He tangata, he tangata, he tangata. That is the most important thing, the people. The editors of this Journal give hours of their time every week for scant acknowledgement and certainly no financial compensation. I wanted to reward them with a day that would be collegial, entertaining and informative and that would highlight for them how special their group is. I was nervous. Jeff's are big shoes to fill, but all-in-all, the day seemed to have gone well. So back to the library. Feeling out of place, standing alone, I spied the shelves in the Journals section. I steered in that direction and discovered that in front of me were shelves holding the earliest issues of both IMJ and the New Zealand Medical Journal (NZMJ). As a New Zealander and the current custodian for the IMJ I felt that I owed it to the Journals to have a look at both of them. I picked the first issue of each off the shelf and made my way to the more welcoming environs of the Fellows' lounge. There I promptly found myself comfortable in a leather chair in front of the open fireplace. Oldest first, I started with the first issue of NZMJ, published in 1887. The introduction was written by David Colquhoun. I sat in a lecture theatre named after him when I was at medical school in Dunedin and from that experience learnt nothing about him. Here I learnt that he wrote well, very well, for sure much better than the average submitter to the IMJ today, sexist language aside. And I learnt that being a good doctor was important to David Colquhoun; he cared about his patients, wanted to apply science as best he could, and had the same doubts as all of us today about whether what he was doing is actually of benefit to our patients. If you will excuse the gender issue, I will paste some of his words at the end of this piece as they remain relevant today. Settling further back in my leather chair in front of the open fireplace of 145, I read thoroughly through the first issue of the College's academic journal. I was struck by what I read. These white men with the ridiculous hats and extravagant moustaches were people of compassion, science and intellect. They were doing their best for their patients. They were not the people of those black-and-white photographs. I felt humbled by the fact that I had made dreadful assumptions about them based merely on appearances. In their academic endeavours, these early physicians were showing themselves to be people of quality. They diligently worked reporting cases so as to help their colleagues and future patients. They had understood the need for open communication between professionals and they did understand science. They were as committed as any of us today to moving medicine in Australia and New Zealand forward. I feel fortunate to have by chance visited 145 Macquarie. I would encourage all Fellows to do so at some point. There is no rush for you to do so; we are all time poor and one would hope and expect that the facility will be there for many, many years to come. But seriously, you should all call in at 145 at some point, see the library, and just spend a few minutes of contemplation in the Fellows' lounge. It is your College, you should visit. It might surprise you on the upside; it did me. In the Medical Profession a man must go on gaining knowledge or he must go back. There is no standing still. Left to himself he must get into contracted habits of thought and routine ways of practice. It is only by keeping himself in touch with his brethren throughout the world that he can avoid the perils of stagnation. There are two chief ways of doing this: one is by diligent study of the current literature of his profession, which is, fortunately, good and abundant; and the other is by personal work at societies and by contact with his Fellow Practitioners. We shall be glad to receive from Medical Men, to whom this journal is sent, papers on subjects of Professional interest. We hope not only to receive and publish particulars of interesting or unusual cases of disease, but also to get special information from Medical Men in various parts of the Colony as to the climate and tendencies to disease in their own immediate locality. We may say, then, that our aim is to open a field of discussion of whatever subjects may be of interest to the Medical Profession in the Colony. It has also been decided, after some consideration, not to make the journal the medium of any personal discussions or disputes, but to keep its pages wholly for matters of general interest. (David Colquhoun) Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.