Vernon Collins Oration (VCO)

The Vernon Collins Oration was established in 1981 to honour the memory of Professor Vernon Collins.

Professor Vernon Collins

Professor Vernon Collins was the first Medical Director of The Royal Children's Hospital (RCH) in Melbourne, a position he held from 1949-60. He then became the Professor of Child Health at The University of Melbourne until his retirement in 1974.

Affectionately known as VLC, he was studying at Horsham High when a perceptive headmaster suggested he should study medicine. He graduated MBBS in 1933 obtaining further degrees in Melbourne (MD, 1936) and London (MRCP and DCH, 1940).

Professor Collins later became a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal Australasian College of Physicians. Two of his contributions to literature deserve special mention: Education of the Physician and Teacher in the Total Care of the Child (Medical Journal of Australia, 1953) and The Child in Hospital, (Medical Journal of Australia,1954).  His small practical book Infant Feeding gained a wide readership among general practitioners, nurses and parents.

Professor Collins was a good role model to the many residents, registrars, students and educators at the hospital, and was an early proponent of patient and family-centred care.

Professor Collins had two sons, one of whom became an eminent neurologist and worked at the hospital for many years, Dr Kevin Collins.

The Oration

The Oration was held bi-annually until 1989, and annually since 1990 and has been an important part of The Royal Children's Hospital's 151 year history. It is conducted under the auspices of the The Royal Children's Hospital's Executive, the RCH Medical Staff Association, The University of Melbourne and the RCH alumni. The annual Vernon Collins Oration celebrates the legacy of a gifted clinician, and a great educator and mentor.

It is a great honour to be asked to give the VCO and many distinguished people have delivered memorable and important orations. Below is a complete list of orators:

• 2024   Professor Sharon Goldfeld AM, Director, RCH Centre for Community Child Health
  The power of paediatrics to address child inequity within a generation: reality or fantasy?
  
  
• 2023   Liana Buchanan, Victoria’s Principal Commissioner for Children and Young People
  Children’s rights in 2023: progress and challenges
  
  
• 2022   Professor Jonathan Carapetis AM, Executive Director of the Telethon Kids Institute, Perth WA
  From paternalism to partnership: the opportunity for Indigenous health research 
  
  
• 2021  Professor Lynn Gillam AM, Academic Director of the Children’s Bioethics Centre
  The ethical life of the hospital
  
  
• 2020   Professor Elizabeth Elliott AM, Distinguished Professor in Paediatrics and Child Health, University of Sydney
  Championing child rights amidst the chaos of COVID-19
  
  
• 2019   Hon. Justice Jennifer Coate AO, Former judge of the Family Court of Australia and one of the six Royal Commissioners appointed by the Australian Government's Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
  Children: The need to be seen and heard
  
  
• 2018    Professor Sandra Eades, Associate Dean Indigenous Centre for Epidemiology and Biostatistics School of Global and Population Health, The University of Melbourne 
  Responding to contemporary challenges in Indigenous child and adolescent health
  
  
• 2017   Professor Shitij Kapur, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Services, The University of Melbourne
  Improving health in the era of biomedical revolutions
  
  
• 2016   Professor Dinah Reddihough AO, Director of Child Development and Rehabilitation, The Royal Children’s Hospital                                                                                   
   Disability at the crossroads
  
  
• 2015   Professor John Daley, Grattan Institute Chief Executive Officer
  The Politics of health
  
  
• 2014   Dame Quentin Bryce, Former Governor General
  The best we have to give
  
  
• 2013   Professor Frank Oberklaid, Director, Centre for Community Child Health, The Royal Children's Hospital and Professorial Fellow, Department of Paediatrics, The University of Melbourne
  Child Health in the 21st Century: Challenges, opportunities, and a leadership role for RCH
  
  
• 2012   Professor James Angus AO, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine Dentistry and Health Sciences, The University of Melbourne 
  From hay, corn and horses to building a world class medical precinct
  
  
• 2011   Professor Graeme Barnes, Senior Gastroenterologist, The Royal Children's Hospital and Professor, Department of Paediatrics, The University of Melbourne
  RCH on the Move, Looking forward…. looking back
  
  
• 2010   Professor Peter Doherty, Laureate Professor, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, The University of Melbourne
  Evidence-based reality and our children’s future
  
  
• 2009   Professor Kerr Graham, Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery
  As the twig is bent, the tree’s inclined
  
  
• 2008   Professor Des Gorman, Head School of Medicine The University of Auckland
  The role of the doctor in the future
  
  
• 2007   Professor Graeme Barnes, Gastroenterologist, The Royal Children's Hospital
  reseaRCH matters: "it's just a touch of gastro". Rotavirus revealed.
  
  
• 2006   Pru Goward, Sex Discrimination Commissioner; Commissioner Responsible for Age Discrimination
  Finding time to care
  
  
• 2005   Professor Lou Landau, The University of Western Australia                                                                    
  Children – therapeutic orphans
  
  
• 2004   Professor Graeme Clark AC, Director, The Bionic Ear Institute
  The story of the bionic ear
  
  
• 2003   Professor Henry Ekert, Oncologist RCH
  Past, present and future diseases of blood and in cancer
  
  
• 2002   Dr Don Edgar, academic & social commentator
  The secret garden; valuing children in our community 
  
  
• 2001 Sir Gustav Nossal
  Australian biotechnology & global health challenges
  
  
• 2000   Dr John McNamara, Paediatrician RCH
  Just a farmer's son
  
  
• 1999   Dr Ian Hopkins                                                                                                                                                  
  BC and AC before Collins and after Collins: jubilee review of the decade, 1949-59, and the role of VC, visionary and medical director.
  
  
• 1998   Professor Richard Larkins                                                                                                                                
  Ethical aspects of experimentation on children
  
  
• 1997   Dr Norman Swann, Broadcaster
  Health care and the new millennium
  
  
• 1996 Professor Peter Phelan, Stephenson Professor, University of Melbourne
  The future for paediatrics
  
  
• 1995 The Hon Marie Tehan, Minister for Health
  The RCH & the government's role in children's health
  
  
• 1994 Professor David Danks, Chair Murdoch Institute
  Healthy people, not custom made people: future use of genetic knowledge
  
  
• 1993 Mr Brian Burdekin, Federal Commissioner for Human Rights
  The rights of the child
  
  
• 1992 Professor Fiona Stanley
  Technology seduction, lost opportunities for children
  
  
• 1991 Professor Arthur Clark
  Children's hospitals
  
  
• 1990 Dr John Court
  What is the use of children?
  
  
• 1989 Emeritus Prof Geoffrey Blainey
  A glimpse of vanished children
  
  
• 1987 Professor Roger Short
  Breastfeeding, birth spacing, infant health
  
  
• 1985 Ms Joan Montgomery, Headmistress PLC
  Education: the greatest gift
  
  
• 1983 Mr Peter Jones, surgeon RCH
  The coming of age of paediatrics in Victoria
  
  
• 1981 The Hon Mr Justice Asche
  The rights of the child