I'd like to ask Arthur, about the issue of leading change and pushing boundaries. At Monash University when I was there in the 60s and you were heading [the Department of] Paediatrics, what percentage of the University do you think cared that you and Vernon played a role in ethical debate.

Arthur Clark: I think it was a role, certainly it was a role for Vernon because he already had a long track record of offering opinions to the public about these issues. He was given to commenting on matters as they came up and it was expected of him. I inherited that but I tended to be a spokesman on paediatric matters rather than being associated with a particular hospital or university. It seemed to work for us. But now I have no idea, I suspect the role is all over the place.

Glenn Bowes: The issue here that I'm interested in is the actual leadership as Henry pointed out in relation to John Colebatch. What’s the role of the academic head of department in enabling some of that to happen, to make progress?

Peter Phelan: Glenn, if I could comment. By the time I became Stevenson Professor of Paediatrics, the Hospital Ethics Committee was alive and well and starting to flex its strength. It had been created at about the time I took over from David Danks - we discussed membership and he found a teacher from Camberwell Grammar and I produced one of my patients. Both were, in fact, marvelous community representatives.

I saw my role very clearly to get the committee to try to understand the importance of doing new things and not being overly constrained by, for example, uncertainties over side effects. So, it [the ethics] moved from that public one to this very constrained institutional role. That was occurring in the early 1980s.

Arthur Clark: It was earlier than that, Peter. In about 1975 the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) established a Sub-Committee on Ethics in Research, of which I was a member, and that led to the establishment of the NHMRC's Medical Research Ethics Committees a few years later.[80]

Peter Phelan: I well remember David [Danks] and my discussion about how to get the right people on the Ethics Committee.

Dick Cotton: That's a fascinating perspective. One of the longest-serving members of the Ethics and Human Research Committee at the Royal Children’s Hospital is Ron Lambourne, a senior master at Camberwell Grammar.[81] I guess when he started he was probably a junior master. That was a link through David himself?

Peter Phelan: Yes, that's correct and I suggested Mrs Patricia Kee.[82]

Witness to the History of Australian Medicine