A Life of Service

A life of service BY ROB BOWER A life well lived

Peter van Duren BDSc (WA), MB BS (Adelaide), FRCS

Peter van Duren was born 1942 in the Dutch town of Boekel, about 20km from the German border. Not a good address at the time. He was the eldest of Mathys and Maria van Duren’s three children. When the family arrived in Fremantle from war-weary Europe in June 1952, Peter was nine years’ old and spoke no English. He attended Armadale High School for three years and was awarded an Education Department Endowment Trust Scholarship to complete his schooling at Kent Street Senior High School. He was obviously bright. None of this was known to his classmates in 1961 when he started at Dental School at UWA. He was simply “Dutch”, something of a tearaway and obviously bright as well as dextrous (we started constructing technique complete denture prostheses and a cast partial denture in first year!). During the five years of the course, firm friendships were forged, and one standout relationship developed between “Dutch” and Bob Heady. They share-farmed together on leased land at Kalannie near Koorda to support their studies. University breaks and occasional weekends were spent seeding, spraying, and harvesting. They were such successful farmers that each boasted a new car at the end of one season. Peter and Bob added spice to the dental course. Like saffron, they brought out the best in us and added colour to a time-demanding and rather grey university course.

At graduation in 1965 Peter achieved equal top marks and received the Leonard Nathan Prize in Oral Medicine and Oral Surgery. Like many of us, Peter had received a State Government Dental Bursary, which required a return of service working for the Dental Health Service nominally for up to five years, of which the first few were spent in the bush. Peter worked from Derby to Esperance and in the Eastern Goldfields, but one notable stint was spent working at small sidings along the Trans Australian rail line on the Nullarbor Plain – Curtin, Chifley, Forrest, etc. With no 240-volt power, Peter was given a foot treadle-powered dental drill (no high speed either). As he told it, at the outset his hand moved in unison with his leg action! In 1967, Peter married Lorraine Treeby and commenced dental practice in Fremantle. It was while in general dental practice that he decided to study medicine and he and Lorraine moved to Adelaide with their twins Stuart and Michael. During his medical studies Peter supported his growing family, later to include Susan, by working parttime as a dentist. In his final year, Peter spent an elective at Port Hedland Regional Hospital, which was to influence his later decision to practice well away from the city. After graduation, he continued his studies working at Fremantle Hospital for five years to obtain Fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons as a General Surgeon. After a brief stint working in private practice as a general surgeon in the southern suburbs of Perth, Peter decided to move north and in 1985, he relocated to Derby as a regional surgeon providing service from Kununurra and Wyndham in the east and Broome and Derby in the west. By this time, he and Lorraine had separated, which may also have motivated the move north. In 1986 Peter married Louise Hunt who had worked with him as a theatre nurse in Fremantle. They continued to work together in mutual love for life. It was during his seven years in the Kimberley that Peter’s interest in horse racing re-emerged, but his dental classmates recall its first flowering – a keen interest in harness racing that saw Peter pick most, if not all, the winners at the “trots” one evening. In 1992 Peter and Louise moved to Port Hedland where he was the only full-time surgeon in the Pilbara. The horse training continued with at least one local winner in the “Round”. Peter’s next move was to surgical practice in Northam to which he and Louise commuted from their horse stud property at Bakers Hill. By this time Peter had trained winners in the Kimberley, and now in the city. Kalgoorlie, Peter’s original dental genesis, called and for the next seven years he worked in private surgical practice while training horses that were placed in two Kalgoorlie Cups. In 2006 Peter “retired”, but after six months he resumed practice in Port Hedland and spent the next seven years there, eventually retiring for good in 2013. Always a fit man, in 2012 Peter travelled to New York to compete in the NY Marathon but Mayor Bloomberg cancelled the event at the last minute due to Hurricane Sandy. Undeterred, Peter secured a late entry in the Seattle Marathon and ran there. At age 68 Peter took up skiing and he and Louise travelled many of the snow slopes of the world over the next few years after divesting themselves of the horse stud, but not the property at Bakers Hill. Peter van Duren did not practise dentistry for long but his effect on dentistry was profound. Through his intelligence, ambition, and determination he influenced fellow dental students to strive. He was a loyal and generous friend. In 2018 Peter noticed his memory failing and, as ever, his diagnosis was sound – Alzheimer’s. Louise cared for him lovingly up to 27/08/2021, when he died aged 78 years.

Class of 1965 Malcolm Bird Dental Surgeon Rob Bower Periodontist Gregory Doran Anatomist Hartley Edwards Dental Surgeon Dick Hardy Dental Surgeon Bob Heady Prosthodontist David Hodby Dental Surgeon Bill Marsell Dental Surgeon John Mathieson* Dental Surgeon Robson, Norm* Dental Surgeon Van Duren, Peter* Dental & General Surgeon Wall, Chris* Prosthodontist *deceased