Peter Phelan: As someone said, the Research Foundation was established in 1960 with an independent Board. It had grown out of previous activities that had really started in the immediate post-war period with Howard Williams and Doug Stephens. It was formalized in 1960, initially with three major research groups - a Clinical Research Unit, headed by Howard; Gastroenterology headed by Charlotte Anderson; and Surgery headed by Doug Stephens. There was subsequently a fourth unit [Haematology], headed by John Colebatch.

By the early- to mid-1960s, Howard Williams was Executive Chairman, they didn't appoint a Director, and when Howard became Dean of Postgraduate Studies about 1970 or ’71, John Colebatch became Executive Chairman. And the Research Foundation supported those Units and gave small grants to other research activities in the Hospital.

Vernon was involved and supportive. So it was partly a bucket of money and partly supporting those research workers. Then, in about 1973, it was decided to appoint a Director of the Research Foundation and Don Cheek was appointed.[84] It was a disaster both for Don and for the Research Foundation. He was an inappropriate appointee at an inappropriate stage in his career and he was a sick man.

There was anger among some in the hospital for the way Don Cheek had been treated when at the Hospital as a researcher in the 1950s. He and Howard Williams clashed - Howard thought Don was a woolly thinker with no clinical skills or perspectives. Howard opposed his having any clinical responsibilities. Don left Melbourne and went to Johns Hopkins Medical School in Baltimore and built up a good research reputation. Those who felt he had been badly treated pushed for his return as Director of the RCH Research Foundation. When he came back he was sick and clearly past his prime. He set up his own research group, pushed the gastro research unit out of the Research Foundation, disbanded the Clinical Research Unit and the Surgical Research Unit. Doug [Stephens] went to Chicago which was a tragedy, and Charlotte [Anderson] had already gone to Birmingham.

Then, soon after that, Vernon retired, having been very unwell for some time. Again, the tragedy was that someone hadn't helped Vernon to retire earlier. The University had difficulties in appointing a successor to Vernon. They offered it twice and it was refused.

Then David Danks was approached by the then Dean [of Medicine][85] and asked would he apply and he did. That was fortunate because, at least, there was someone to give research leadership. And while David didn't play an active role in undergraduate teaching, he built his own unit.[86] More importantly, he was appointed to the position of Hospital Co-ordinator of Research and he supported research activities in the rest of the Hospital and the University Department [of Paediatrics].

So research then spread more widely through the Hospital through David's initiatives. And fortunately David had John Court and then Max Robinson to run the undergraduate teaching. But, the Department [of Paediatrics] again didn’t have a particularly high profile in the Hospital. David had a high profile, but he was known more for his research interests than as the Stevenson Professor.

Don Cheek agreed to retire in 1982 and David was then appointed – the appropriate person for the appropriate job - to the Director of the RCH Research Foundation, Professor of Paediatric Research, and I was appointed Stevenson Professor.

David McCredie: Don Cheek had a brilliant mind, there's no doubt, but it sometimes went a little astray. One of the problems was that Don was appointed to senior positions when he had almost no clinical ability. In fact, before he was made a Professor and went overseas, there was a stage where all electrolyte results automatically went to Don Cheek. I was chief RMO [Resident Medical Officer] and I had to go around after him and correct a lot of the comments made in the [patient] histories. With the right backing, he could have made a success of things. But he really shouldn’t have been in a clinical position.

Henry Ekert: At the stage when Don came back, those of us who were not in the Foundation but had University appointments, felt that he would be a breath of fresh air and would come in with a great research record which he had had in Baltimore. I can still remember my intense disappointment when it was not possible to pin Don down to any thought process of any duration. It was obvious that some change had taken place in this man. It was a very destructive phase for research and the Research Foundation because of the disorder he was suffering from. He must have been very different once upon a time.

There was a political push to get Don back by people who did not necessarily know him well enough at that stage in his life and saw him as he had been in the past.

Witness to the History of Australian Medicine