Glenn Bowes: That reminds me, because I was the beneficiary of it, that with John Court and Barry Catchlove during Peter's era, the Centre for Adolescent Health was established as the first national academic centre in adolescent health.[120] That was well ahead of its time nationally and one of the first internationally. And similarly the Centre for Community Child Health that Frank took on as Professor/Director. They were both parts of Peter’s extension of paediatrics into a broader domain beyond hospital-based excellence in the organ-specific paediatric disciplines.

Frank Oberklaid: I 'd just like to tell an anecdote which says something about Peter's vision. I still recall a knock on the door of my office one day and when he sat down he asked me what I was going to do for the rest of my life. I was just recovering from a serious illness and I said, I just want to stay healthy. He pooh poohed that. He was the first person to float the idea with me of an academic centre for community child health and then forced me to do my MD. And nothing after that was the same. I think that was an example of the Professor of Paediatrics, as you said Glenn, having a vision, encouraging people, building morale and the rest follows.

Susan Sawyer: The corollary of having influence is not just the changing or expanding of practice but influencing policy. Peter, my sense when I was training in paediatrics was that the Children's Hospital was very active in the State Department of Health at that time in a way that then, under Peter Smith, didn’t seem to be sustained.[121] Was that correct?

Peter Phelan: That was true and it related to some personal relationships, of which Frank was the key. One was with David White, who Frank happened to have been at school with.[122] And then Frank had relationships with bureaucrats, and both Frank and I had close personal relationships with John Paterson who took over as Secretary of the Health Department.[123] So those linkages became very important.

Ann Westmore: The community outreach of the Department of Paediatrics seemed to take off then, but there had been very vibrant areas like the Burns Research Unit that I was aware of from an earlier time.

Peter Phelan: I saw the need to put some strong academic foundations to community paediatrics and adolescent health. But many of the Departments in the Hospital had very strong community links.

Garry Warne: For instance John Court with diabetic education and the diabetic camps. That goes back two generations. Also, David's [Danks] involvement in the Little People of Australia.

Peter Phelan: There were a huge number of these links. I don't think it was anything new, but it gave a formal academic underpinning to these [links]. And also I believed by having that formal academic underpinning there was more prospect of influencing government policy. And clearly, there was an absence of any significant input at a Federal or State level from the early 1980s into child health policy. 'Bunny’ had been on the NHMRC – you were the last paediatric nominee on the NHMRC 'Bunny’, is that right?

Bernard Neal: Probably, because the constitution [of the NHMRC] allowed the Australian Paediatric Association to nominate someone. Then, when that disappeared I think the real change happened.

Peter Phelan: So I saw that one way of achieving this [political imput] was to get high profile, successful academic units and I think that's occurred.

Witness to the History of Australian Medicine