Wally Byrne, who just received the key to a country town for his decades of medical service, was never the studious type in high school.
The sports-mad Sydneysider failed all his exams at the end of year 10 and left to begin a carpentry apprenticeship.
Fourteen years later, he would be up past midnight every evening studying chemistry and mathematics, accumulating the knowledge he needed to enrol in university and become a doctor.
"My year at college was one of the happiest years I had," the now-88-year-old said.
"It opened up a whole new world for me."
His passion for medicine would lead to an extraordinary life of service and adventure.
He travelled on an 11-foot plywood boat to a remote Vanuatuan island as a hurricane approached, to help a woman during childbirth.
He dangled precariously on a rope from a helicopter, to treat a sick seafarer off the West Australian coast.
He worked shifts that began on a Saturday morning and would sometimes last until Monday night at one of the busiest hospitals in the country.
As young people around the country worry about recently announced ATAR results and their futures, Dr Byrne brings words of encouragement: If you work hard and have a passion for something, "anything is possible".
"It's only a matter of application and discipline," he said.
"You've just got to do the work. If you do the work, you'll get there."
'It was unbelievable'
Dr Byrne's path to medicine began in 1960, when the "footloose and fancy-free" young carpenter travelled to Vanuatu to rebuild schools after a hurricane.
He intended to stay six months, but was there two years, and became close to the medical missionaries who inspired his career change.
After returning to Australia, he spent a year at Sydney Technical College, catching up on the academic knowledge he needed to go to university, before embarking on six years of study and research at the University of New South Wales.
"I was amazed that I had the confidence to do it," he said.
"[I thought] is this realistic? Going back at my age of 30? Going back after failing?
"In retrospect, it was unbelievable."
It was during those years he met Anne — a nurse, midwife and his now wife — through a mutual friend.
After he graduated, the couple and their two young children returned to Vanuatu, before moving to England in 1977 for three more years of training.
By 1980, Dr Byrne was 46, had four children and "was just living week to week on a wage".
"It was time to start looking at the future," he said.
"[To] come back to Australia and get a job and get some security."
His heart was set on opening a country practice, so he could holistically use all the skills he had gathered over the years.
The Australian Medical Association offered him three locations — Hay, Broken Hill or Esperance.
After consulting a map, he chose the latter, and arrived to do a three-month locum stint.
So far, he has stayed 42 years.
Dr Byrne said the country town, which borders the Southern Ocean and is sustained by the local farming sector, was a great place to raise children and allowed him to practice all the things he trained for — anaesthesia, surgery and obstetrics.
"And of course looking after the whole broad spectrum of general practice that covers everything in medicine," he said.
Developing strong bonds
The hardest part about retirement, Dr Byrne said, was farewelling his patients.
For starters, it meant transferring thousands of pages of handwritten records to new doctors.
But he had also developed a strong bond with the community, treating four generations of some families and others throughout the entire 42-year stint.
"It's a privilege to be able to practice medicine virtually from the cradle to the grave," he said.
But after working throughout the pandemic, despite being a vulnerable person himself, and with his registration due for renewal in two months, he decided to call time in August.
"I will miss my patients," he said.
"That was a really hard decision to make.
"But what's the alternative? Keep working and drop dead in the office?
"That wasn't fair. Not for me, I don't worry about that, but to the town and the family."
But Mrs Byrne, who became the practice manager after their children left home, said the decision had brought a lot of love into their lives — through heartfelt messages of thanks and support.
The Shire of Esperance even gave him the key to the shire in an official ceremony.
"I can't believe we've done what we've done and we're still here," Mrs Byrne said.
"And we're both alive to read these messages from people.
"People have been so wonderful and caring."
Taking time to relax
For the past four decades, Dr Byrne and his wife would rise at 4:30am and have breakfast together.
Then he was off to the hospital for rounds, before completing paperwork and seeing his first patients at 6am — as the time was convenient for working people.
The practice opened late on Thursdays, early on Saturdays and at times he saw up to 70 patients a day.
Four months into retirement, the Byrnes are still working on slowing down.
They are determined to spend time catching up with their wide network of family, all over Australia and abroad.
And they are both focused on staying in bed just a little longer in the morning.
"I'm handling it," Dr Byrne said.
"These days I can sleep in until seven-thirty or eight o'clock."
