Combining his two great passions of medicine and aviation is something David Hooke has considered a privilege.  

To be rewarded with an Order of Australia Medal for his dedicated service to nephrology and aviation medicine was an overwhelming honour for the Buln Buln East doctor.

For more than 40 years, Dr Hooke gave his services to nephrology – medical care for patients with kidney disease including transplants and dialysis.

He was “absolutely chuffed” when notified of the award, saying it was completely unexpected – “when you retire you drop off the radar.”

In his retirement, Dr Hooke is enjoying the 12 years of planning he has put into his Buln Buln East property and enjoying the fruits of that planning with his wife Jenny in their extensive garden and his truffle patch.

Dr Hooke’s love for aviation complemented his yearning to meet rural medical needs.

For almost 30 years, his flying became a “good reason” to be a visiting consultant at Bairnsdale every month.

“I learnt to fly so I needed to consult in the country so I could fly there,” he said.

Based at Bairnsdale Regional Health Service from 1990, Dr Hooke said he enjoyed the close relationship with thousands of patients over the years and sharing their care with other visiting consultants.

“It saved them a lot of travelling time to Melbourne.  At one stage there were 42 specialists working at Bairnsdale…it was a great service.

“It got me out of town and I could fly there so it was a win-win for the local people and for me,” he said.

But Bairnsdale is only part of a lengthy and decorated resume that details his lengthy services to Monash Health’s nephrology department; a consultant physician in intensive care and chair of senior medical staff at Cabrini Health; and consultancy positions for almost 20 years at Caulfield General Medical Centre and Prince Henry Hospital, Melbourne.

As a pilot, he combined his medical background and love for flying to provide voluntary services to the Aviation Medicine Society of Victoria and Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association of Australia.

His greatest combination of medicine and aviation was as a Royal Australian Air Force specialist reserve from 1986 to 2015, including one month in East Timor and three months service in the Middle East.

Dr Hooke credits his parents hard work in giving him and his four siblings every opportunity to succeed.

Growing up in a farming family, he and his siblings were sent to boarding school – “32 years of boarding school, it was an amazing investment in their kids.”

Dr Hooke admits he had no idea what career path he wanted to take but he was always impressed by the local Beaufort GP when he was growing up, Dr Gordon Little.

His medical studies took a different turn into nephrology when he spent time working the Royal Freemasons Hospital in Hampstead, London.

“It’s a very broad discipline.  If your kidneys go down, your whole system goes down.  I’ve always enjoyed the breadth of medicine that you study in nephrology.

Intensive care also captured his dedication for more than 25 years, where he worked under pressure but was rewarded by the challenges of making people better.

“It was very demanding but I loved it because they got better.  It was the most rewarding thing to make sick people better.

“It’s a privilege to be allowed into people’s lives and 99 per cent of the time to be trusted and to get them better.

“It was very rewarding to be valued by your colleagues and appreciated by your patients,” he said.

Dr Hooke developed his love for aviation through his father John who was a decorated fighter pilot in the war, shot down three times and rescued by the Italians.

It seemed a natural progression to be a specialist reserve with the RAAF.  “Because I’m a pilot and a doctor, it made sense.”

He worked in a military hospital in East Timor and an American intensive care unit in Iraq for three months.

“Iraq was very challenging, it took me out of my comfort zone but I do thrive on a challenge,” he said.

From his Buln Buln East property, Dr Hooke expects he will be kept busy with his truffle patch, garden, his planes housed at the Drouin South airfield and acrobatic flying.

Dr Hooke has three children and seven grandchildren.

“I am very lucky that I have my health, a beautiful wife and my little patch of country,” he said.

Dr Hooke wasn't the only one who received a call either.

The call that told him he would be awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in the general division came as a “big surprise” to Bill Doherty.

But few with a grasp of football history in West Gippsland would have been surprised.

“For service to Australian Rules football” was the somewhat understated citation accompanying the award announced in yesterday’s Queen’s Birthday honours to William Joseph Doherty, widely known as Bill or “Doc”.

Now a resident at Hillview Aged Care at Bunyip where the 98-year-old says he’s “looked after terrific,” most of Mr Doherty’s life has been spent at Nar Nar Goon.

It was there where a decades’ long association with club and league football started.

He first played for Nar Nar Goon in 1945 soon after returning from service with the Australian Army during World War II and not hanging up the boots until 1956.

Eighteen years on the club committee between 1955 and 1972 included nine years as president and 17 years as the club’s delegate to the West Gippsland Football League.

Mr Doherty spent 14 years from 1968 to 1981 on the WGFL executive, the first five as vice-president and the other nine years as president.

He also spent seven years as the league’s publicity officer and eight as tribunal secretary after retiring from the executive.

Both the Nar Nar Goon club and West Gippsland league awarded him life membership for his services and in 2016 Mr Doherty was officially named a “Legend” of the Nar Nar Goon Football Club.

Those honours sit alongside a Victorian Country Football League service medal, being named Cardinia Shire Citizen of the Year in 1999 and the Australian Sports and Centenary Medals, both awarded in 2001.

A former manager of Red Gem Growers and Packers at Nar Nar Goon, Mr Doherty also volunteered his services to a number of other community groups.

These included the Nar Nar Goon CFA brigade where he served terms as captain and 3rd lieutenant, 20 years as volunteer curator/maintenance worker at the Nar Nar Goon Recreation Reserve and at several school ovals in the district as well as being an active member of the Nar Nar Goon sub-branch of the Returned Services League.

Mr Doherty retains a sharp sense of humour for which he is fondly remembered by those that have known him over the years, says life now is a mix of ups and a few downs but mostly time to appreciate the many friends he has made along the way.