From the desk of Roland Rocchiccioli – 20 June

We should, all of us, support the Order of Australia Awards. They are an important recognition of achievement and commitment by our fellow Australians.

DR Rimas Liubinas, Ballarat Group Practice, Howitt Street, has been awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia, OAM, in the recent Queen’s Birthday Honours List.

It would be difficult to imagine a more worthy recipient.

Since graduating from medical school, Dr Liubinas has worked his entire career in Ballarat. Together with his wife Jayne, they have raised four children, all of whom were educated at Clarendon College.

By way of declaring a conflict of interest, Dr Liubinas is my GP. I met him through the Liberal Senator, Sarah Henderson, who was a bridesmaid at their wedding. Sarah and I worked together at Channel Ten when she and Alister Paterson, the former Liberal member for South Barwon, were the top-rating weekend newsreaders.

It has been argued that awards should be given not for doing one’s job, but for making a contribution to the community which is above and beyond the call of duty; the willing to give of one’s time, which is truly the greatest gift we are able to make, one to the other. It is not always easy, especially if one has a busy working life and family commitments.

There are those days when, at the end of a gruelling week, all you want to do is collapse onto the sofa and contemplate your navel. The grit to continue is what separates those who do, from those who do not; the girding of your loins and fulfilling a promise when you are too exhausted to move out of your own way.

Rimas is the son of Lithuanian refugees who fled the Soviet 1944 occupation of the Baltic States. Eventually, they found their way to Australia where his parents met at a Lithuanian community function in Victoria. He, and his three brothers (a pharmacist, an engineer, and an optometrist) were raised in a household with a prevailing ethos of service and gratitude in return for their freedom.

In particular, his mother, who trained as a psychiatric carer in Bonegilla, made an indelible impression on the young Rimas. Her constant reminders were, invariably, of community service, and of their life-long obligations to the Commonwealth of Australia, which, in their darkest days, offered them succour and opportunity.

Rimas is one of those rare and exceptional, altruistic, gifted practitioners, whom one meets too rarely in life. The wants, needs, and welfare of his patients, and his fellow-travellers, is his abiding raison d’etre. In an age of greed, celebrity, and self-aggrandisement, he is a blinding beacon of all that makes our society worthwhile.

His generosity of spirit, coupled with his abiding sense of community, manifests as the mortar which helps bind together the bricks of our fragile society. His mantra is one of passion and concern; his credo is of service to others – above all else. Without guile, he is – in short, ‘exemplary’ – contrary to his self-effacing protestations, “I just try and do the best I can.” (He is notoriously late because he refuses to hurry a patient!)

Colleagues have enthusiastically verified his exceptional diagnostic skills; his depth of, and commitment to, medical self-education; and his assiduous up-to-date general medical knowledge through countless weekend conferences, constant research, detailed reading, and willing and effective collaborations.

Rimas is truly worthy of this recognition for his 30-years of selfless dedication and service to medicine; the people of regional Victoria – especially the care of aged, the suffering, and the less fortunate; the training of the next generation of practitioners; the health and safeguarding of the vulnerable young, in particular burns victims through the Kids Foundation; and, specifically, to Ballarat community health, and the holistic welfare of the people and the region, and to which he has devoted his entire working life.

Dr Liubinas, I salute and thank you.

Roland can be heard each Monday at 10.45am on radio 3BA, with Brett Macdonald and contacted via [email protected].