Club Meeting March 3 2021 Professor Geoff Sussman

Members attended   27
Guest. Kate Lynch. (daughter of Tim Lynch )
Guest Speaker. Professor. Geoff Sussman
Chair. Ron Brownlees.

President Geoff Gledhill welcomed the guest speaker, guest and members. He informed members of two thank you cards he received, one from Family Life and the other from a recipient of one of our Christmas hampers. He also reminded members to refer to the Bulletin for the club’s strategic plan.

Ron introduced the guest speaker, Professor Geoff Sussman, who has been his personal friend for a number of years. Besides being a wound management specialist in his professional life, Geoff has many other interests and has lived a colourful and rich life to date. Amongst his many achievements are being in a singing duo known as “David and Goliath”. He also bred, shown and judged pedigree dogs, and was a Director of the Moomba parade for many years.  He was a member of Apex for 16 years and is now a member of a Rotary club in District 9800. He is also on the District ROMAC committee as well as the End Trachoma 2020 committee. His  latest accolade was being selected as the Victorian nomination for the Senior Australian of the year.

Geoff was born in Australia in 1938, a child of Polish immigrants. He completed matriculation at Melbourne High school and wanted to be a performer but his parents objected, so he went to Melbourne University and completed a degree in Pharmacy. He recounted his career as a pharmacist and the transition from that to being a wound management specialist.He was appointed to Monash University to establish a wound management programme. He has travelled extensively in his professional career and said he made many friends from all over the world.

He then spoke about the different types of wounds such as ulcers, lacerations and burns which included sunburns, radiation burns, as well as burns and scalds, and the treatment and management specific to each type of wound. He also touched on skin tears in the elderly generally, in Aged Care facilities. He said that as their skin is so thin and fragile, there is No place  for bandaids on their skin. He said that in chronic ulcers and wounds, it is usually important to treat the cause and not just the wound. Therefore it is important to treat the whole patient and not just the wound.
His take home message for all members is…Never do things by halves.  Do not sit back and wait for others  to get things done.  A survivor is one who is responsive to challenges.

Ron then thanked Professor Sussman for  a very inspirational and informative presentation.