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CURMUDGEON’S<br />
CORNER<br />
IN MEMORIAM<br />
LOANS FOR<br />
TRAVELLING FELLOWS<br />
The Royal Australasian College of<br />
Surgeons provides interest free loans to<br />
Fellows who plan to undertake approved<br />
research and/or training outside Australia and<br />
New Zealand.<br />
To be eligible to apply for a loan, an applicant<br />
must:<br />
• Be a Fellow of the College<br />
• Be in good financial standing<br />
• Demonstrate financial need<br />
• Be assessed as undertaking appropriate<br />
research and/or training<br />
• Not have an application pending, nor have<br />
received, a RACS Scholarship within the last<br />
5 years<br />
• Not receive more than one loan in the past<br />
five years<br />
Applications can be submitted at anytime<br />
with assessment being undertaken upon<br />
receipt.<br />
Loans will not exceed AU$20,000 each and<br />
will be subject to the availability of funding.<br />
These loans are interest free for a period of<br />
up to two years.<br />
Application forms can be found on the<br />
College website under College Resources<br />
For further information please contact:<br />
Megan Sproule<br />
T: +61 3 9249 1220<br />
E: megan.sproule@surgeons.org<br />
IPOD DEAFNESS<br />
Why are they listening to music instead of the sweet<br />
sounds of the world around them?<br />
BY PROFESSOR GRUMPY<br />
There is one thing that really<br />
annoys me and it is deafness.<br />
Now before you all jump on<br />
me and say how dare I make fun of<br />
or criticise someone with a disability,<br />
let me explain. I am sure that in time<br />
(well, as long as it takes you to read this<br />
article) you will agree.<br />
Yesterday I was painting our front<br />
fence. Mrs Curmudgeon has been at me<br />
for months to do this, but who wants to<br />
paint in misty rain. Yesterday however<br />
was different – sunny and dry. What is<br />
more, my favourite football team has<br />
been eliminated from contention (quite<br />
unfairly as it happens – that umpire<br />
was so biased). We live on a road where<br />
a lot of walkers come by with their<br />
dogs and being a congenial chap I greet<br />
them all with an enthusiastic “Good<br />
morning”. No replies! Again and again.<br />
The dogs look at me and wag their tails<br />
an extra beat or two but the humans –<br />
not a blink!<br />
The only explanation I could come up<br />
with is that there was an epidemic of<br />
deafness in our area. Maybe it was just<br />
rudeness but it seemed to be mainly<br />
younger people who were walking their<br />
dogs, not grumpy old codgers. Then<br />
the penny dropped – they all had little<br />
buds in their ears and were listening<br />
to music. Well some might have been<br />
music but the ones that had less well<br />
fitted buds the sound escaping was not<br />
music.<br />
Why would you walk in the Hills<br />
on a nice day with birds in the trees<br />
chorusing and other dogs barking to<br />
greet your dog and not want to hear<br />
this sound of joy? If it was Brahms or<br />
Mozart, maybe - but not if it was The<br />
Stones (or worse).<br />
The epidemic is growing – indeed it<br />
is nearly a pandemic. People isolated<br />
from other people in their own little<br />
electronic cosmos. You see them in<br />
trains and buses, in the street and<br />
elevators, in shops and offices - quite<br />
oblivious to their surroundings. I must<br />
try an experiment and see if the earbud<br />
brigade respond if I say something<br />
rude to them – I suspect not.<br />
There is a serious side to this deafness,<br />
namely that people are not aware of<br />
their surroundings when it matters.<br />
They may not hear the car coming or<br />
the shout on the golf course of “Fore”.<br />
University of Maryland researchers<br />
found 116 reports of death or injury of<br />
pedestrians who were using a listening<br />
device between 2004 and 2011– the<br />
so called “i-podestrian” deaths. Of all<br />
the accidents in the study, 55 percent<br />
involved trains and 89 percent occurred<br />
in urban areas. In almost a third of the<br />
incidents, it was claimed a warning was<br />
sounded prior to the accident.<br />
Our condolences to the<br />
family, friends and colleagues<br />
of the following Fellows<br />
whose death has been<br />
notified over the past month:<br />
Sarah Kruger<br />
New Zealand Fellow<br />
Roderick D. MacDonald<br />
NSW Fellow<br />
Keith H. Langford<br />
USA Fellow<br />
Bruce Filmer<br />
USA Fellow<br />
Donald C McKinnon<br />
South Australian Fellow<br />
Platon Black<br />
Queensland Fellow (2014)<br />
John Talbott Dunn<br />
Victorian Fellow (2014)<br />
Robert James McInerney<br />
NSW Fellow (2014)<br />
Redmond B.G. Cook<br />
NSW Fellow (2014)<br />
Glen John Coorey<br />
NSW Fellow (2014)<br />
John Joseph Connors<br />
ACT Fellow (2009)<br />
We would like to notify readers that it<br />
is not the practice of Surgical News<br />
to publish obituaries. When provided<br />
they are published along with the<br />
names of deceased Fellows under<br />
In Memoriam on the College website<br />
www.surgeons.org<br />
Informing the College<br />
If you wish to notify the College of the<br />
death of a Fellow, please contact the<br />
manager in your regional office:<br />
ACT: Eve.Edwards@surgeons.org<br />
NSW: Allan.Chapman@surgeons.org<br />
NZ: Justine.Peterson@surgeons.org<br />
QLD: David.Watson@surgeons.org<br />
SA: Daniela.Ciccarello@surgeons.org<br />
TAS: Dianne.Cornish@surgeons.org<br />
VIC: Denice.Spense@surgeons.org<br />
WA: Angela.D’Castro@surgeons.org<br />
NT: college.nt@surgeons.org<br />
34 SURGICAL NEWS OCTOBER 2015 SURGICAL NEWS OCTOBER 2015 35
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