George Stanley Sharp, 1887 to 1967: the story of a family doctor (Juliet Oliver)

Juliet Oliver. Published by Almos Books, December 2011. ISBN 9780473199043. Contains 100 pages including photos. Price $30 plus $5 p&p (to order phone 06 3049160 or email Julieto@xtra.co.nz)Juliet Oliver of Greytown has produced a book about Dr George Stanley Sharp 1887-1967. This is a very interesting book outlining the life of a general practitioner in a small rural town of Featherston from 1925 to 1950. In many ways it parallels the story of my own father in Masterton. George Sharp was born in Tasmania, the son of a congregational minister and there went to school in the same year as Bernard (later Field Marshall) Montgomery. He entered Otago Medical School in 1906 and 2 years later won the Australasian 3 Mile Championship. He had to take 2 years off his course to raise money by teaching and entered his final year in 1914. Twenty-one of those students sat their exam early, without obstetrics, and after passing went straight into the army. They left New Zealand in April 1915 for Cairo and thence to Gallipoli until January 1916; then to France for a year and then to England to be on the staff of the main New Zealand Hospital. Back in New Zealand in 1919 while a house surgeon in Wellington Hospital he met his wife to be who was Matron of the Childrens Hospital. After buying the Practice in Featherston, he still felt the need to go to Britain for his obstetric training. In Featherston there was a small private hospital in the same grounds as his residence. As was the custom there he operated, delivered babies, saw his patients and then would do visits which may be as far as 25 miles away. A very active man, keen on all forms of sport and racing, with a lovely wife and four children, he was also Medical Officer to the Japanese Prisoner of War Camp in Featherston from 1942 to 1945. He passed his Practice onto another very fine doctor but unfortunately nearly all his own records have been lost. The author has done a wonderful job of piecing together some very interesting stories of a life in a country practice in those days of the Depression and World War 2 and I recommend it to any interested in medical history. Owen Prior Retired GP Masterton