At 36 years old Kiama general practitioner Dr David Grant began practicing in the Kiama area and 36 years later, he is hanging up the stethoscope and celebrating a magnificent career of service to the area.

Having transitioned from analogue technology, paper-based systems, and mechanical and electrical computing to today’s digital age and the improvements to medicine, Dr Grant has seen it all.

The rise in care for mental health has become a prevalent issue within society during Dr Grant’s tenure.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics released findings in 2023 that infer 42.9% of people aged 16-85 years old had experienced a mental disorder at some time in their life.

“Back in the early 2000s I approached schools with another doctor to talk about mental health,” Dr Grant said.

“I got heavily involved in mental health at that time, but with my patients the issues tend not to be so much.

“There are [the] obvious conditions like depression, but the real worry [in society] is adolescence and young people in their early 20s with depression and what comes up [from that].”

Dr Grant sees the subsidising of psychology treatments making a huge difference to the profession but concedes there is a shortage of psychiatrists.

“Luckily enough, good general practitioners and psychologists can usually work out most problems,” he said.

When asked what the most interesting medical development he has seen, Dr Grant mentions the treatment of croup cough.

“When I first came here, people would bring their child overnight in the hospital and put them in a humidified tent and you’d watch them all night,” Dr Grant said.

“And then someone suddenly decided, why don’t we just give them prednisone?”

Croup cough can be attributed to a viral infection which can be much like a seal’s bark and is now treated with prednisone which is a form of steroid.

Looking to retirement, Dr Grant is not looking to ride off into the sunset immediately, but to the Arctic with his wife affectionately known as “Robbie”.

“We’ve been to the Antarctic about seven or eight years ago, and we thought we’d just round it off into the Arctic and hopefully see some polar bears,” he said.

“We’re going from Aberdeen [in Scotland], right through to Svalbard in Norway – I think that is the last inhabited island in the Arctic Circle.”

In the near future, you may just see Dr Grant on the golf course, but not using the Carnegie Clark golf clubs he inherited from his friend’s dad.

“I’m actually being fitted for some golf clubs,” he said enthusiastically.

“I inherited some clubs from another friend’s father who was about three or four inches taller than me, so to get some clubs that will actually be my height should help me on the golf course.

“I have an incredibly OCD and aggressive sort of, win-at-all-cost mentality.”

For those looking to take up the profession as a general practitioner Dr Grant has some pearls of wisdom.

“If you’re a well-rounded individual and get enjoyment from being able to treat people and ‘grow old or up’ with people – you cannot beat general practice, it is just fantastic from that point of view,” he said.

“You can be very close to people [and] you can get a lot of heartache, but you can also get a lot of joy out of treating people.”