Clive Auricht’s adventurous life reflected his family origins in the Lutheran settlers of Hahndorf, the influence of anti-German sentiment during World War I on his father, the principles of selfless care of others and pacifism he learnt from his father, and the discipline inculcated by his time as a ‘nasho’*.
Clive’s great-great-grandfather was a blacksmith who came out in the convoy of four ships with Captain Dirk Hahn (of Handorf fame). His great-grandfather was a Lutheran pastor at Langmeil in the Barossa Valley, and his great-uncle Theo was a GP in Hahndorf. His grandfather’s death and family circumstances resulted in his grandmother’s relocation to Rose Park. There was no Lutheran church in Rose Park so his father, Ernst, attended the Anglican church, which, in Clive’s words, ‘confirmed him as being fully assimilated as an Australian’. Ernst trained as an Anglican priest and served at Angaston, where Clive was born.
Clive attended St Peter’s College in Adelaide from Year 7. His upbringing and its values of pacifism and care of others led to his being bullied. Despite his principles, he ended this by successfully confronting his tormentor.
He won a Commonwealth Scholarship to the University of Adelaide, where he studied medicine. At that time, national service was compulsory, and university students could fulfill their obligation in two three-month periods instead of one continuous period of six months. Clive valued the discipline that service brought to individual and society.
In 1956, Clive grasped the opportunity to serve as a European medical assistant in Papua New Guinea (PNG) at the end of his fourth year of medicine. The PNG Public Health Department ran a cadetship scheme to attract medical practitioners to PNG, and Clive was accepted into this. PNG was then an Australia Mandated Territory, and most of the people lived in the traditional way.
Clive returned to PNG after his fifth year, and again at the end of sixth year after marrying his first wife, Ruth. She was probably the first white woman ever seen in the Eastern Highlands, where Clive had a 12-month research posting looking into the cause of kuru. Their first child, Richard, was born in Goroka that year. He would later welcome Geoffrey (sadly deceased), Mark (sadly deceased), David and Elizabeth.
Clive returned to Adelaide in 1960 to complete his year as a resident medical officer at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. The hours were long and arduous, but prepared him for life as an acting district medical officer in Saicho in the Northern District of PNG, caring for a population of 40,000 people. Kokoda was within his district, hence the title of his autobiography, Medicine Beyond Kokoda, which recounted the tragedies and triumphs of a solo surgeon, obstetrician, public health doctor, epidemiologist, educator and truly ‘general’ practitioner.
Eventually, the demands of family required a return to Adelaide in 1963, before Clive felt he had exhausted his commitment to the people of PNG. He joined Dr Ken Crafter at the Sturt Clinic in the first purpose-built general practice clinic in Adelaide. General practice obstetrics and surgery and after-hours care were then a normal part of GP life.
Clive became a member of the RACGP in 1967 and achieved Fellowship in 1974. He chaired the RACGP’s Practice Management Committee and developed the college’s problem-oriented record system and The Blue Book.
Clive’s care of his patients was exemplary – he had been trained well by his father – but his care of himself and his family suffered, and his first marriage broke down. However, he later remarried and is survived by his second wife, Helen.
After a decade spent in the Student Health Service at the University of Adelaide, Clive then worked at Elliston, one of the few dispensing practices in South Australia, and at Cleve. He was appointed coordinator of rural training in South Australia and state director of training for the RACGP before retiring from general practice in 2003.
Clive’s talents outside of medicine included building large wooden boats, choral singing, working for St John Ambulance, inspiring younger colleagues and making friends.
Clive would strongly agree that rural Australians need changes to be made to medical training to enable young graduates to again become generalists in his image.
Clive is survived by Helen, his children David and Elizabeth, and his nine much-loved grandchildren.
Achievements
- Queen’s scout
- Involvement in developing and refining personal health records (The Blue Book) and the RACGP record system
- Medal of the Order of Australia
- Honorary life Fellowship of the RACGP
- Officer of the Order of St John
- Life member of the AMA
- Author of Medicine Beyond Kokada (2011)
*Someone who completed compulsory military training under the National Service Act.
Written by Dr Peter Joseph