THE WALLABY TRACK WITH LIONEL MUSSELL

I was lucky to have been associated with Professor Graeme Clark in the developmental stage of the ' bionic ear ’, as I was in charge of public relations for the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital at the time . I ' ll never forget the deaf dog .

Graeme had received a lot of criticism for his experiments that involved cats . One day , he told me about a forthcoming operation on a deaf dog . He asked if there was a possibility of some publicity to counter the criticism . I jumped at the chance , but had no idea of the interest this story would generate . Max Grant , chief of staff at the Melbourne Herald newspaper , rang to say he had a photographer in his car and where could he take a picture of the dog ?

“ You ' ve got a world story here , mate !” said Max . Only trouble was I nearly didn ' t have a dog ! Graeme hadn ' t mentioned the publicity to the dog ’ s owners and they were unwilling for it to take place . But Graeme was able to persuade them to let it go ahead , with the media conference scheduled for the day before the operation .

There was a good roll-up of media people for the conference and Graeme explained what would be happening next morning . He told them he would allow one or two people at a time to put on gowns and masks and come into the theatre , where he would explain what he was doing . He did stress that they should use the name of the department in any pre-op publicity and they all solemnly agreed , although I had grave doubts about them getting their tongues around ‘ otolaryngology ’!

The resulting coverage was wonderful and it did indeed go world-wide , despite the fact that the dog was found to be nerve deaf and couldn ' t be helped by the operation . Since that memorable day , the bionic ear has helped thousands of people world-wide and Graeme Clark has been widely recognised as the great and humble man he is . It was a pleasure working with him .

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