Royal Prince Alfred Hospital has a special place in Dr Martin McGee-Collett's heart.
 

Dr Martin McGee-Collett, a veteran neurosurgeon at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital (RPA), has hung up his scrubs after 35 years operating on the organ he fondly calls “the thing that makes us who we are”.

Over more than three decades, Dr McGee-Collett has watched neurosurgery evolve from largely manual techniques to a highly technology‑driven specialty. Early in his training, neurosurgeons relied heavily on their hands, relatively primitive tools, detailed anatomical knowledge and basic imaging, but he now credits advances such as MRI and stereotactic navigation with transforming both the safety and precision of brain surgery.

“You know how your car's got sat-nav and the cursor shows you where you are on the map?” Dr McGee-Collett said. “Well, we can use CT and MRI to do a personalised sat-nav map, if you like, of our patient's brain, the person we're operating on, and we can link that to a probe that will pinpoint exactly where we are in the brain.”

While Dr McGee-Collett also works at other hospitals across Sydney, RPA holds a special place in his heart. 

“I like to do all of my big cases in RPA because it's so well equipped and the nurses are terrific, the intensive care specialists are terrific, the anaesthetists are terrific, my colleagues are terrific. It all works like a big, well‑oiled sort of gearbox,” he said.

It is these colleagues he says he will miss most as he shifts his focus to more administrative responsibilities within the District. 

“The thing that really makes it worthwhile for me is working in the operating theatres at RPA where we all wear these crappy blue pyjamas – no one has to wear a fancy Armani suit or, you know, that kind of stuff. We're all there on our merits.”

He is particularly keen to pay tribute to the nurses, whom he describes as the quiet heroes of patient care. They “do all the hard work” looking after really sick people, he said, calling it, “just a wonderful thing, people looking after other people”.

Dr McGee-Collett is retiring from surgery but will continue working in the District as SLHD Clinical Director, Surgical Stream, for at least the next six months. As for retirement, he is characteristically relaxed.

“My wife will give me direction, so that's good,” he laughed, adding that he has plenty of hobbies to keep him busy. “I'm not concerned that I'll be twiddling my thumbs.”