This week our guest speakers are Chris Henry and Geoff Vogt who will speak about The Industry Leaders Fund. Chris is the General Manager of Austofix, a medical technology company that manufactures in Adelaide bone replacement components for use by Orthopaedic surgeons.  He has recently received a grant from the Industry Leaders Fund, whose mission is to help those with industry leadership potential and aspirations to achieve their aims sooner than would otherwise be possible. Geoff Vogt, CEO of ILF, will briefly outline its program and Chris will talk about his grant and the benefits he expects from the course he will undertake; he will be leaving for London the day after our meeting to attend the High Performance People Skills for Leaders Program at the London Business School.

Last week was a special meeting – the 1500^th meeting of the Club.  Our guest speaker Dr John Crowhurst, retired anaesthetist, started by telling us about the history of anaesthetics and then told us a largely untold story about the role anaesthetics played in the aftermath of Pearl Harbour.  The first anaesthetic was given by William Morton in Boston in 1846 when he demonstrated the use of ether.  Ether was simple to use but dangerously flammable.  In the US, nurses administered anaesthetics, while in the UK and Australia, it was the province of doctors.  This was fine, but with the advent of pentothal in 1934, a more complex anaesthetic with higher risks, this became problematic.  In the attack on Pearl Harbour, 2400 were killed and 1200 injured with 1000 of those needing surgery.  Stocks of ether were largely destroyed in the attack and the story told to countless medical students over the years is that "more patients died from pentothal than died from their wounds".  John's aim was to uncover that story and test its veracity.  When they ran out of ether and nitrous oxide, inexperienced staff were administering pentothal.  Records from the time have been heavily redacted (until 2026) and there are few survivors to interview.  But the best data we have is that from 219 pentothal anaesthetics, 42 died - but of course not all from pentothal.  There is no way to separate the causes of death accurately.  Anaesthetic deaths from pentothal are not from the drug but errors in adminstration, dosage, etc.  The experience, however, led to a realisation that well trained anaesthetists were needed as the area became more complex.  The US still uses nurse anaesthetists, but they are supervised by medically trained anaesthesiologists.

On a lighter note, Bob Buckerfield has kindly supplied a photo of those charter members who were present at our 1000th meeting, about 10 years ago.