Today’s passing of Dr Chris O’Brien aged 57 to cancer and also my own bowel surgeon Dr Philip Douglas whom I found out recently had passed away from cancer earlier this year, were both cases of good men who died too soon. Philip was only 53 and one of the most gentle, kind doctors I have ever met. By the time I met Philip Douglas I had experienced many painful operations and was impressed by his unwillingness to subject me to any more, rare in a surgeon. But he knew I had been brutalised by all the surgeries and he knew it would take many years to recover from them.
Both were champions for cancer care in Australia and indeed the world and both died well before their time. It is particularly hard when people with cancer lose their doctor to that disease, they must feel so disheartened. They will both leave a vast gulf in the lives of people who knew them. May they rest in peace and may their families draw comfort from all the suffering they helped assuage in their all too short lifetimes.
