Melbourne clinic notches up a century of care

In 1923, Dr Tom Hogarth had returned from a posting as a medical missionary in Vanuatu, then the New Hebrides, and decided to establish a medical practice in the Melbourne suburb of Surrey Hills.
 
One hundred years later, the Mont Albert Medical Centre he founded is still opening its doors to patients, and its principal doctor Dr James Hare has been reflecting with pride on an enduring legacy of care.
 
‘What’s really nice is the continuity,’ he told newsGP, mentioning a patient who had been coming to the practice since 1927.
 
‘He was delivered by Dr Hogarth in his kitchen in Union Road just next door to the practice.
 
‘He was my patient right until he died recently in his 90s.’
 
The practice also has some enduring family links. Dr Hare’s father and mother, Dr Linley Hare and Dr Alice Hare, bought the clinic in 1945 following Dr Hogarth’s sudden death from a heart attack.
 
Dr Hare joined the practice in 1977, six years after his father died, and worked with his mother until she retired at the age of 77.
 
Now his daughter Dr Katie Weatherhead has been part of the practice set-up since 2010, while another daughter, and son-in-law have also worked there at different stages.
 
The tradition still seems to be going strong. Dr Hare’s grandson carried out work experience there in 2022 and remains keen to follow the family footsteps into medicine.
 
The location has also remained stable, with the clinic moving to its present site on Union Rd in 1955.
 
‘My parents took over the practice and we had it in our home,’ he said.
 
‘They had five children, so we bought a place on the corner and moved two doors up, and it’s been there ever since.’

Having also been on Box Hill hospital staff for 40 years in both obstetrics and in anaesthetics, he is still practising full time, but remembers a time when things were very different.
 
‘My parents used to do all their own appendixes, and hernias and varicose veins,’ he said.
 
‘I used to be on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, we’d always get phone calls in the middle of the night, we’d be doing home visits in the middle of the night.’
 
Dr Hare, who is still broadening his horizons with work as a tour doctor for the upmarket Captain’s Choice travel company, now has 45 years’ service at the clinic.
 
He notes the longevity of many of the GPs who work there, with the next longest-servicing GP, Dr Colin Davis, now having notched up 44 years in the same place.
 
Overall, 10 GPs currently practise out of the clinic, which used to be a partnership but became part of ForHealth in 2007.
 
Many of the clinic’s past and present doctors will mark the centenary at a gathering later this month – and it is the bond between those GPs that Dr Hare believes has been instrumental in keeping the clinic going for so long.
 
‘People tend to stay a long time,’ Dr Hare said.
 
‘You’ve got to have a very good relationship with your fellow doctors and your staff.
 
‘They become your best friends.’

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continuity of care general practice Mont Albert