FOR years, Dr Bill Purton helped bring Bendigo babies into the world.
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Tuesday marks 100 years since he was born.
A physician for almost 40 years, Dr Purton said he did “a lot of midwifery”.
He also started the blood bank and served as an honorary anaesthetist.
The Intensive Care Unit at the former Bendigo Base Hospital was named in his honour.
THE inspiration to become a doctor struck when Bill Purton was a boy.
“There was a doctor here in Bendigo that I greatly admired,” he said.
“I thought, by gosh, I’d like to be like him. He was such a sincere, generous man and a very good doctor.”
Reflecting on his life’s achievements on Monday, the eve of his 100th birthday, Dr Purton said he had tried to be like his idol.
He studied medicine shortly before the start of World War II, and worked as a physician from 1953 until 1992.
Dr Purton specialised in a number of areas of medicine, including midwifery and anaesthetics.
“If you were interested in something, you did it,” he said.
He was born Herbert Purton, but nicknamed Bill by an uncle.
“You can’t call a little baby like that Herbert,” Dr Purton’s uncle reportedly said.
The nickname has stuck about 100 years, and counting.
Dr Purton and his wife, Joan, live in Bendigo with one of their children.