Fairfield GP Furio Virant was recognised for his service to medicine with the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in this year’s Australia Day Honours. We talked to Dr Virant about his important work in improving primary care standards in Australia during the past 40 years.
How long have you been a GP and how long have you been practising in the Fairfield LGA?
I came to Fairfield in 1978 and that’s how long I’ve been practicing as a GP – 44 years.
Before that I was in the Royal Australian Navy for four years and before that I did my residency.
Were you a doctor while in the navy?
Yes, I was a doctor in the Navy.
I served on the HMAS Vampire, which is now part of the Australian National Maritime Museum – I can go and look at my old ship with my grandkids! Out of the four years I was full-time in the Navy, I spent about one-and-a-half years at sea.
It was quite an eventful time.
It was the end of the Far East Fleet and the British stationing in Hong Kong at this time so I saw the end of colonial rule in South East Asia.
In 1976 we sailed to Timor to evacuate the Australians who were stuck there (after the Indonesian invasion). This was after the five Australian journalists were killed by the Indonesian military. Qantas ended up evacuating the Australians, but we were on our way there to do everything we could for them.
We were also part of the group that went to America for their bicentenary celebrations in 1976.
Very interesting times!
When/why did you decide you wanted to become a GP?
When I was in the Navy they gave me time to do other things like anaesthetics and psychiatry. I realised that what I found most rewarding was to see people on a continuing basis rather than just sporadically.
General practice really came to the forefront because it suited my personality.
I also had some good mentors. Both of my daughters were delivered by GPs, in those days they were delivering babies. I got to know GPs and they were extremely nice, they were very warm and I got to know about their lives.
Tell us about your work improving primary care in Australia
Divisions of General Practice
We started the Divisions of General Practice in our local areas, then we set up state and federal bodies. I was the Chair of the Division of General Practice in Fairfield and I was on the inaugural board of the federal Division of General Practice in Canberra.
We formed the Divisions of General Practice because despite GPs vaccinating kids, we were still getting major outbreaks of measles, mumps, rubella. We looked at our fridges and found they were abysmal as far as keeping temperatures regulated. There was a cold spot here, a warm spot there and it was only really in the middle of the fridge that we could guarantee temperatures were going to be okay.
We set up Standards in general practice in 1993. We tested the Standards in 400 practices across Australia, and they were supposed to be good practices, but we found things like wet towels in the toilets which were never changed. You can imagine what this meant for hand hygiene.
GPs were doing the best we could with what we knew at the time.
Australian General Practice Accreditation Limited (AGPAL)
This led to the setting up of a body called AGPAL to audit medical practices. I was on the AGPAL Board in the early days. It has now been going for 20 years.
I’ve audited more than 700 practices across the state.
If a doctor doesn’t meet the Standards in general practice indicators, we reassess the indicators they haven’t met and I write reports for AGPAL to say now they’ve met the indicator or they still haven’t met the indicator.
Professional Services Review Committee
I was on the Professional Services Review Committee and the Medicare Participation Review Committee for about 10 years. These committees oversee doctors who have behaved badly. Most of the problems were with documenting and not having good enough records. That was a great learning curve.
Medical Benevolent Association
I’ve been on the Medical Benevolent Association Council for 26 years. That’s also been a labour of love because we look after doctors and their families in need and crisis. Over the past 26 years there’s been an enormous change in the needs of those we assist. It used to be doctors with cancers, who had had strokes or road accidents, and we looked after their families. We now have domestic violence, alcohol and drugs, and we have all the other social problems and mental health problems.
Sydney University and Western Sydney University
I was involved in the interview processes for prospective doctors at Sydney University and Western Sydney University. Universities have different processes but basically it’s eight interviewers, eight rooms, eight minutes.
That needs to be tickled a bit. We need to look at our workforce and make sure we select people who are willing to be there for the good and the bad, people who will be there for their patients whenever they’re needed. If you’re not going to see patients during a pandemic then you should have gotten into something which was not patient-based.
What does receiving the OAM mean to you?
I was very emotional and humbled by it all. You think about all the people who received it before you.
It’s a wonderful thing. Not all countries have the same Honours system that we have, recognising people of all different classes and backgrounds. Some have recognitions like knighthoods but they forget about the people on the ground who do things like volunteer work.
I feel really proud to have received it and my family feels very proud.
I don’t see it as an end point where you’ve got to retire now. I think it’s nice that people are acknowledged when they still have things to offer.
What do you love most about being a GP/what part of the job gives you the most satisfaction?
General practice is extremely rewarding because it opens up a lot of avenues. You can do a whole range of things. I’ve now been seeing some families for five or six generations. It’s just so rewarding to know about the family, not only about their physical and mental health, but the social economic side of their life and support them through it.
There’s been enormous change in general practice. When I started at Ray Rickard Medical Centre in 1978 we only had three medications for blood pressure. It was sad to see so many people have massive strokes because we couldn’t lower their blood pressure. We also didn’t have the X-ray equipment, there were no brain scans, no ultrasounds. It was a lot of guesswork.
Men weren’t very responsive to coming to a doctor’s surgery. Our surgery was filled with women and children and the men would only come in when they were 65 and retired. By that time they already had chronic obstructive disease from heavy smoking or prostate cancers. Now men are bringing children in and are much more receptive to doctors
It’s also a pleasure to have gotten to where I am now, at 74, and see practices who have transitioned to a professional way of doing things, with practice managers and staff who are trained, infection control measures put in place – and computers!
It’s been rewarding to see the positive changes – they’ve all been positive because we’re living longer and living a better quality of life.
I’m lucky enough to have a very supportive wife who didn’t see too much of me because of all the different hats I was wearing but made sure my bag was packed and I was ready to go.
What is the most important thing you/your practice contributes to this community?
I think it’s the bilinguality. I came here in 1978 when there was a very strong Italian community and even today our staff are bilingual.
We have people who come to our surgery from Serbian backgrounds and Latin American backgrounds. If they speak Spanish and I speak Italian, we understand one another quite well.
I enjoy being able to lock into a culture. They say to me, ‘well, you know what I mean don’t you?’ and I say, ‘yes, I know what you mean’.
Understanding the culture is extremely rewarding and important because patients know you can lock into what they are all about.
What do you love most about Fairfield LGA?
Travelling around for my work I see so many practices – some of them are absolutely marvellous, with all the bells and whistles and financially the rewards can be bigger if you work in areas like Rose Bay or North Sydney. But these things never worried me because I’ve gotten to be with my patients throughout their lives, through the good times and bad times.
You get attached to the people and the area.
I’ve been involved with the Fairfield museum and art gallery where I learned about Fairfield and its history. This gave me a great love for the area. It’s got a such a wonderful history. Sir Henry Parkes lived in Canley Vale. I actually did a house call for a lady who lived on the property where Henry Parkes lived.
What advice do you give your patients about maintaining good health?
Good mental health is the number one driver of good health. If you’re depressed you don’t want to leave the house, you won’t exercise, you won’t eat well.
A lot of it’s got to do with Vitamin D. In societies where there’s a lot of Vitamin D around, people are happier. The less sunlight, the more people will get depressed.
So, my message is: get out in the sunlight, exercise and develop a good circle of friends.
I’m going out tomorrow with my wife to have lunch with Ted who’s 103. He hasn’t stopped going out at any time during the pandemic. He says to me, ‘well, why should I? I’ve gone through the Depression, served in the Second World War and the Korean war, I’ve gone through everything’. You’ve just got to get through it.
He’s got this wonderful, positive way of looking at life. I always like to see him because he’s always got a joke for me, he’s always got a sense of humour.
Friends are very important. I say to people if you haven’t got friends go to church, join a group, there’s so much around. There’s an enormous number of activities people can do to feel rewarded.
Loneliness, isolation – that’s the worst possible thing for good health. Sure enough, if mental health goes down the drain, physical health will follow.