90-year-old Wauchope doctor, Keith Beck, keeps busy

He hung up his stethoscope when he turned 85 five years ago, but still offers the government advice about getting more rural doctors to move to remote areas.

Born in Sydney, he worked in Crookwell, Goulburn and then Wauchope from 1991.  He won two Commonwealth government grants and used to write features on practice management for Australian Doctor Weekly.

Dr Beck has spoken at international health conferences in the USA and was on the board of Bundaleer Care Services for eight years.  He was a founder member of the Australian Association of Practice Managers, NSW branch.

He generously donated his grandfather’s 1904 naturalisation certificate to the Department of Immigration and it’s the oldest they have.

“My grandfather, William Beck, a journeyman baker, arrived from Germany at Port Adelaide in 1884.  He married my grandmother in Sydney, joined the gold rush in Western Australia, where he made no money, and had three sons, all bakers, and a daughter,” said Dr Beck.

He says with a smile that he’s composed his epitaph.

“When I die it will be:  I was bred to a baker’s wife.  I took up medicine because the dough was better.”

When he graduated, he worked at Lewisham hospital, and got married to his amazing wife, Shirlee, who passed away in 2012. First, they went to a cottage hospital on a portable generator in Delegate on the Victorian border.

Six years later, they went to Crookwell, and then went on to Goulburn.

“We lived out on a farm, and had a practice of 19 doctors. My friend David Gillespie, the MP, said it was the biggest group practice in Australia at the time,” he says.

He and his wife came to Wauchope in 1991.

“It was a nice town.  It still is, though it’s doubled in size.  From 1991 until 2012, I worked as a locus in every practice from Kempsey to Laurieton.  It was interesting,” he says.

Dr Beck has three sons and a daughter, Denise who lives locally and enjoys spending time with his children and grandchildren.