Woy Woy doctor clocks up 50 years of medical practice

A Woy Woy doctor recently celebrated 50 years of medical practice as his Vidler Ave clinic on May 1.

Dr John Caska of the Vidler Ave Skin Cancer Centre first joined the service on May Day in 1971, uniting with his long-serving father, Dr ‘Joe’ Caska.

After graduating along with his brothers, Paul and Peter, from Sydney University in January 1969, John joined his father’s clinic as one of the first ‘modern young doctors’ to come to the area.

Caska reminisced on his first years of being a doctor and said there was no specialists on the Coast at that time.

“When I look back over the 50 years it is hard to believe that all that time has passed and the enormous changes and progress that have occurred,” Caska said.

“Gosford Hospital was a small two-storied building with very few facilities … we had none of the immediately accessible expert specialist help or facilities.

“It was the era of ‘heroic medicine’ – we treated a huge range of problems and worked extremely long hours that would not be generally tolerated now.

“In those days we had to do everything from delivering babies, anaesthetics, operations, fractures and general practice.

“I even gave the first anaesthetic for a Laparoscopic procedure for my brother Peter at the Ocean Beach Private Hospital.”

Caska joined the board of Brisbane Waters Private Hospital as one of the five founding doctors in 1978 and has since seen the hospital’s expansion with a new rehabilitation and research clinic in 2018.

Caska said doctors now have access to a huge range of medical experts, hospital facilities, diagnostic capabilities and equipment that is of a ‘very high standard’.

“The magnificent local public and private hospitals that we now have allow for treatments to be given in most fields,” Caska added.

“These have attracted highly skilled medical specialists for treatment of an ever-increasing number of illnesses.”

Caska said he now works in the skin cancer field at his Vidler Ave clinic.

“It keeps the brain alive and improves the quality of one’s life experience – contact with good people is the greatest experience in life,” he said.

Source:
Media release, May 6
Karen Mead, Office of Dr John Caska