Not all doctors welcomed Dr Ivan Wilden-Constantin in Goulburn. “But my philosophy was if you practise and perform really good medicine, no-one can rock you,” he said. Photo: Wilden-Constantin collection.
Argyle Medical Centre’s founder Dr Ivan Wilden-Constantin says to young doctors it’s more important they arrive and leave work with a smile on their faces than to make money.
“I said to them, chase money and money will run away from you. Do good work, money will chase you,” he said.
Forty-one years after coming to Goulburn, establishing his medical practice in competition with an established one, researching women’s health and joining a lecture circuit in Australia and South East Asia, the 68-year-old GP has repeatedly been chased for his services.
He is treating generations of families who attended his clinic from the beginning.
Completing his medical training at Sydney University and while training and working in Sydney hospitals, he listened to top-shelf mentors including Professor Bill McCarthy, at the time secretary for the College of Surgeons, and Professor Bill Doe, an outstanding academic gastroenterologist and chairman of the College of Physicians.
They thought his ability to relate to people and acquire skills made him ideal for rural medicine.
Goulburn had a huge doctor-to-patient ratio when he arrived. McKell Place Medical Clinic dominated the market. He wanted to compete with them, practising his own style of medicine.
In more recent years he has seen an explosion of corporate bulk-billing medical centres open in Goulburn. “It’s a good thing and it is also a bad thing,” he said.
“A lot of my clients, the corporates do not wish to treat because it’s too time-consuming,” he said.
He had started as a junior doctor and progressed to senior doctor when appointed Goulburn Base Hospital’s director of casualty. Medical superintendent Bruce McKillop urged him to open his own practice to create more competition among doctors.
He progressed to visiting medical officer status at Kenmore and St John of God hospitals. “I think to date I am the youngest person to have obtained VMO status in NSW,” he said.
He returned to Sydney regularly to broaden and enhance his clinical and surgical skills and performed minor surgery, general medicine and paediatrics.
Mulwaree Shire president Laurie Sadlier and Max Keith from aged care facility Sunset Lodge Taralga turned to him to provide two half-day clinics which he did for the next decade.
Laurie Sadlier then lobbied the base hospital to give Dr Ivan VMO status, reminding them of the substantial money they were receiving from the shire. Within a month, this was granted.
He met his wife, junior speech pathologist Judith Kay at the hospital while working long hours as a surgical resident in 1985.
“I walked into the dining room and all the tables were taken. I was still in my theatre gear, unshaven, tired,” he said. Nevertheless, Judith shared her table with him. They met again while jogging early of a morning, went out for coffee and married in 1987.
While paying off a home loan, his finances took a serious hit when rent at his practice, on the corner of Cowper and Clifford streets, Goulburn, skyrocketed due to high interest rates during the Hawke/Keating era, from $250 to $1200 a week.
On his accountant’s advice he looked around for a block of ground on which to build his own practice.
Real estate agent Sam Bryant helped him locate and buy for $40,000 a block of land bordering the central business district. He bought an adjoining block as well for car parking.
But he could not overcome planning difficulties with the city council.
One Sunday night Mayor Tony Lamarra called him needing a doctor for his daughter, who was visiting from Sydney. Over a cup of tea afterwards Dr Ivan explained the stalemate over his development. Soon after, a council engineer, Peter Mowle, arrived on site and negotiated a resolution.
The Argyle Medical Clinic opened in 1991.
After a short time three other doctors came calling, asking the busy GP for a job. He employed them all, sealing the deal each time with a handshake, and continued expanding his skills.
His venture almost came to a crashing end, as we will discover in next week’s concluding story.
