The Health & Aging Committee’s selection for the 2019 Seniors Award is Dr Rodney Syme AM.
Robin said: "I will read out a summary of Dr Syme’s Citation, the full version of which will appear in next week’s Bulletin.
On the information put to the Health & Aging Committee, it was clear that Dr Syme had distinguished himself as a physician, educator, author and advocate. Both his personal and professional lives have been defined by his honesty, courage and compassion and his outstanding service as a counsellor to those facing death.
Whilst the issue of the availability of a medically assisted death in limited circumstances, for which Dr Syme has been a strong and successful advocate, can still be a divisive issue in the community, and quite possibly in this Club, there can be no doubt about Dr Syme’s outstanding service in counselling several thousand patients and others who have sought his help. It is this outstanding service, and his public advocacy on behalf of such persons in seeking legislative change, which is being recognised by the 2019 Seniors Award."
Dr Rodney Syme has been a distinguished surgeon and physician in Victoria for over 50 years. While he could have limited himself to treating physical conditions, his conscience and compassion have led him to examine the needs and concerns of patients at the end of their lives.
Dr Syme has drawn attention to the limitations of palliative care and fearlessly campaigned for the last 25 years on the need for a regime where patients, in limited and guided circumstances, have the right to choose how they die. He has been a tireless advocate for considered public debate, public education and law reform to provide options and control of choices to those individuals with end stage terminal illnesses.
His strong and successful advocacy for the availability of medically assisted death with many safeguards has become law in Victoria since June 2019 in the form of the Voluntary Assisted Dying legislation. In relation to this legislation, Dr Syme has stated that few people who are given access to the law will use it, rather it will encourage doctors and patients to have an open dialogue and give dying people greater autonomy over the end of their life.
Good communication and support will hopefully alleviate patients’ fear and the psychological and existential suffering about their death.
Dr Syme’s public advocacy for medically assisted death has caused him many fights with the medical establishment over the years. In 2016 he successfully appealed a ban imposed on him by the Medical Board of Australia aimed at stopping him providing advice to terminally ill patients.
Once dubbed by the broadcaster Andrew Denton as “Australia’s oldest outlaw”, Dr Syme can now point to the adoption by the Victorian Parliament of the Dying with Dignity legislation, and the likely adoption of similar legislation in other States, and his appointment as a Member of the Order of Australia (AM ) in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List this year, as his welcome in from the cold.
Dr Syme meets all the criteria for the Club’s Seniors Award and is a very worthy winner.
