Medicine, cancer expert rewarded

By Melissa Meehan
UPPER Beaconsfield’s Arthur Day will be made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) this Australia Day for his services to medicine.
The now-retired gynaecologist, administrator, ovarian cancer researcher and medical educator has been recognised for his work spanning more than 40 years.
“I’m very flattered, but I don’t think I deserve it,” Mr Day told the Gazette on Tuesday.
“I can’t imagine anyone thinking I should be nominated, and they don’t tell you who did nominate you.”
Mr Day studied medicine because he always had the desire to do so, but planned to become a general practitioner.
“As part of my training I went to work at a general hospital, a children’s hospital and a women’s hospital,” he said.
“I enjoyed the women’s hospital more than the others.”
That was when he decided to become a gynaecologist.
“I guess I liked obstetrics because they were healthy young people and all very interesting,” he said.
“I think it was also the mechanics of obstetrics and I’ve always been interested in mechanics as well as enjoying the work.”
Once Mr Day made the decision to work with women, he was trained surgically.
“Gynaecology wasn’t a speciality then, but the people who dealt with cancer were mainly surgeons and because I had the surgical training I ended up going into cancer medicine and stuck with it.”
He said that while plenty of cases stood out in his many years of medicine, it was the more difficult illnesses that really made an impression.
“People with ovarian cancer always stood out, it’s a difficult disease and often diagnosed late,” he said.
“If you could improve their outcome it was great – it was a challenge and still is.”
Now a farmer on his family goat stud, Mr Day will spend his Australia Day mowing the lawn and cleaning up trees that have fallen over fences in recent storms – instead of attending a fancy ceremony.