What is the question – April

For April’s What is the Question Roland spoke with anaesthetist Michael Whitehead.

 

What is your name?

Michael Whitehead

What is your occupation?

Anaesthetist at Anaesthetic Group Ballarat for 33 years.

What brought you to Ballarat?

I lived with my family in Creswick; was schooled at St Pat’s; did medicine in Melbourne; returned to Ballarat from London after specialising in anaesthesia. I always planned to return here and I’ve never regretted coming home, it’s a fabulous place to live.

What is your favourite spot in the city?

Apart from the Lake, I like the walk along Lydiard Street from FedUni, through to the railway station with the remaining gold rush architecture.

What is your earliest memory?

As a three-year-old, riding naked on my trike in my grandparent’s street in Essendon. I’ve done nothing that daring since!

What do you like to cook?

Mushroom risotto – an easy favourite: Arborio rice, vegetable stock, garlic, onion, three different mushroom types, porcini powder, two-year-old Parmesan and white wine… a bit in the risotto and a lot in the glass.

What is the most expensive thing you’ve purchased – property aside?

My father and brother instilled in me an irrational love of cars of which I have had too many. Currently, a Maserati sedan. I like its interior and exterior design but usually drive my 18-year-old Pajero.

What building would you choose to be?

That’s ironic. I have just completed a four-year restoration of the former Baptist church. So you could say a lot of me, and Ballarat, is in that building: baptisms, weddings, funerals, restaurant meals (as The White House) and clubbing (as The Power Station)!

What is your most treasured possession?

I have ‘stuff’ but nothing treasured apart from family photographs. On a rainy day, an umbrella becomes a ‘treasured’ possession is how I view things.

What is the greatest love of your life – apart from friends and family?

Community theatre has filled my spare time. I’ve been involved with Ballarat Lyric Theatre since 2002 but I can’t sing, act, or dance. The commitment of our 130 volunteer members, committee, and crew, for our recent production of Les Misérables, is inspiring. The skills learned, shared, and presented on, and behind, the stage contribute enormously to the cultural quality of Ballarat. Rewardingly, many of our team progress to professional theatre and consider Ballarat the incubator of their success and are grateful for that opportunity.

What would you change if you could edit your past?

If I were to edit all my errors of judgement there might not be much of me left. We usually have a choice between making good and bad decisions… so I have to ‘suck it up’ if I make the bad ones! Of most importance, personal relationships always require good decision making, otherwise the ‘edit’ key may need to be hammered!

What is your favourite holiday destination?

Loire Valley in France. I have friends there, both anaesthetists, with whom I worked at the Royal Children’s Hospital 30 years ago. We catch-up at conferences, holidays and their children’s weddings. Otherwise northern Italy, but not while we have the Covid19 pandemic, unfortunately.

What music and television do you like?

All music, played loud, but not rap, heavy metal and country. I don’t see much TV apart from the news, but binge watch streaming of movies and series e.g. Game of Thrones.

What is your favourite quote?

“Never ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee” – John Donne (1572-1631).

Very poignant in these ‘lockdown’ times, in his poem, he stated that no individual is an island, that each is part of a continent, and that any person’s death diminishes us because we are all involved in mankind together.

What technological/scientific development boggles your mind?

The mobile phone! It does GPS, computing, gaming, searching, messaging and, apparently, some people even use it to talk!

What qualities do you admire in other people?

Humility… everything else about that person is guaranteed to be genuine. Something to aspire to.

What was your first job?

Queen Victoria Market in the butcher’s section, $1.40 and hour from 5am to midday, when we we’d clear the stall yelling out to the stream of passers-by, “$1 meat tray and free licker” (we’d throw in an ox tongue!). Got their attention though.

What did you want to be when you were growing up?

Initially, I considered the priesthood but instead did medicine. My next choice was architecture, or then a car salesman, of course.

What scares you?

Not scared but concerned that we are able to nurture our population from birth to reach their potential in a safe environment. The neo-liberalism approach that corporate success leads to trickle-down national benefit needs to be tempered towards the soft socialism of Scandinavian countries where the welfare of individuals is a responsibility of both corporate and state bodies; and I’m not even a political animal!

What historical calamity would you choose to reverse?

Religion as an excuse for war. From the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Vikings through to the eastern and Abrahamic faiths, the usually good moral principles are cast aside, and the differences of view are used as an excuse for decimation. So much slaughter done and continuing today.

What do you wish someone had told you when you were starting out?

Both my grandfathers were tradesmen and used the adage, “measure twice, cut once.” Maybe I should have applied that principle to every decision.