Working for the children | |
For the love of children. My life and medical career. David Buxton Pitt. Melbourne, Pitt Publishing: 1999 (208 pp). ISBN 0 646 38502 X. |
Autobiographies of those who make major discoveries in medicine are not uncommon, but we hear less from those who put newly-discovered knowledge into practice and add their own, more modest original contributions. David Pitt is well known to all who had any involvement in the care of intellectually impaired children in Victoria in the 1960s or 1970s. He brought the approach of a thinking and caring paediatrician to more than a thousand "children" of various ages (babies to those over 70 years old) dwelling at the Children's Cottage, Kew. He improved their care in many ways, and his study of phenylketonuria, as well as his drive and determination, saw the introduction of Guthrie testing in Victoria. This led to the prevention of brain damage in hundreds of patients with the disease. On a personal level, David's love of language and literature is always obvious, as is his artistry as a photographer. Patients sometimes found him daunting or aloof. He was a self-sufficient person, easily acquainted with but not so easily befriended. It was difficult for David to reveal his feelings for others -- until this book appeared. The book is of general interest as a well-written chronicle of aspects of Melbourne life through the eyes of a schoolboy (in the 1920s and 1930s), university student, soldier, general practitioner, paediatrician and retiree. It is especially interesting to those who know David, for his frankness in describing the loneliness of life at home as a child, the interpersonal difficulties he encountered at school, his joy at finding kindred souls at university (especially among the student journalists), and his deep love for his remarkable life-partner, Marjorie, and his children. Suddenly we understand something of the genesis of the complex person we know and like. Even readers who do not know him personally can appreciate this most interesting person. David M Danks
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