Geoff Renton: Of both, the Institute and the Foundation.

Sue McKay: So does that mean that this is the logo for the Foundation, but the Institute doesn't have a logo yet.

Geoff Renton: No, the logo is for both places.

Laurie Muir: So we should regard them as one?

Geoff Renton: For all intents and purposes we are one, but there are two separate legal entities.

Laurie Muir: When I write down that I'm the patron, what am I the patron of? (laughter)

Geoff Renton: Both organisations. These things have evolved over time to secure the future of the Institute on this site and benefit from whatever innovations come out of here.

Laurie Muir: I don't know whether you’ve noticed, but the Baker people are doing the same thing and increasingly refer to themselves as the Baker Heart Institute instead of the Baker Medical Research Institute.

Ann Westmore: It seems that even though the scientists want to focus on research-type activities, there is a fair bit of common knowledge. Is that the case?

Geoff Renton: Yes. I think it was probably exemplified by an international symposium held here in about 1996 or 1998 and attended by scientists and surgeons.[98] Someone said it was unusual to have the mixture all in the one type of conference and I think that is fairly unique here that they work side by side and in a multi-disciplinary way.

Laurie Muir: And my response would be from the outside that the most important role we lay people can provide is being catalysts from outside, linking up and telling others what this Board and the Institute is doing.

Ann Westmore: Are there regular times when you (lay people) get together, apart from meetings of the Boards that you happen to be on?

Laurie Muir: The Chairman and I talk every week. I haven't been a great deal of help to him, but I occasionally go on his major funding missions. Being patron is of course all pleasure, you don’t have to come to Board meetings. But I help when there is an issue.

Ann Westmore: And I suppose you have almost acquired an honorary medical degree by the sounds of it. (laughter)

Ken Knight: If you are talking about amalgamating [the knowledge] of scientists and surgeons, probably the most significant change that has occurred with our research meetings is that we now hold joint meetings, once a week, rather than separate ones that we used to hold, four to five years ago. So we are really talking a common language. We encourage all the visiting Fellows to talk in a language that both scientists and surgeons alike can understand.

Figure 18

Research meetings bring clinicians, scientists and technicians together. L-R Tony Penington, Ken Knight and Geraldine Mitchell. Used with the permission of the Bernard O’Brien Institute of Microsurgery.

Ann Westmore: So there was a time, was there, when the language wasn't so readily understood by one group or another?

Ken Knight: Yes, and the surgeons only came to hear lectures by surgeons and the scientists only came to hear lectures by scientists. But it's important to have the two coming together, because we have research projects in which both groups are combining; we’re all going to the Experimental Medicine and Surgery Unit at the same time. I suppose in the very early days, while I was feeding off the work that the surgeons were doing, there were times when the surgeons had to go off for a case before they had completed operating. In the first three years I was here, I probably operated on over thirty rabbits, joining small blood vessels together. So, it’s one of the unique things that happen in a place like this. You do actually learn the skills of a microsurgeon even though that’s not your speciality.

Witness to the History of Australian Medicine