A lifetime of achievement
He would go on to become a pioneer in Australia’s fledgling hospital pharmacy sector.
Ron Batagol
But for self-described “perennial student” Ron Batagol, a life of learning and service kicked off in earnest with a Pharmaceutical Chemist certificate from the Victorian College of Pharmacy, the precursor to Monash University’s Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences.
In 1962, he qualified as a pharmacist in Victoria under the apprenticeship system, and worked in community pharmacy before taking up a position at The Royal Melbourne Hospital (RMH) in 1973.
It was the very early days of hospital pharmacy, and Batagol had the opportunity to work at the RMH’s newly-established Drug Information Centre, the first of its kind in Australia.
By 1976, clinical pharmacy practice was being implemented in many hospitals, and Batagol was appointed convenor of the Society of Hospital Pharmacists of Australia working party on clinical pharmacy standards and practices.
In those early days, Batagol and his colleagues did their fair share of trailblazing. Sometimes, methods were a little unorthodox, as he shared in an article for the Australian Journal of Pharmacy in 2020.
At one hospital, there was a patient in the oncology ward who was in the terminal stages of a rare form of skin lymphoma. Sadly, the odour from the woman’s lesion was so pungent that it was proving distressing for her loved ones to visit.
After ruling out all other options, Batagol recalls the oncology consultant suggesting that the pharmacy fly in sterile maggots from the CSIRO in Canberra to help with cleaning and deodorising the wound. And it worked, buying the patient some precious quality time with her family.
There were also feats of endurance, such as the time Batagol had to hire an electric typewriter during Easter 1980 to hurriedly create a booklet that would become the first Australian reference guide on drugs and pregnancy.
His list of career achievements is long, with Batagol serving as a prominent voice in specialist, general and consultant pharmacy, and a contributor to countless advisory groups and committees.
From 1981 to 1993, Batagol was a sessional lecturer and subject coordinator at Monash University, before retiring from his pharmacy career as Senior Pharmacist at Monash Medical Centre in 2019.
However the lifelong student is far from idle, in recent years completing courses in Stage 2 Pharmacy Advancing Practice, Criminology and Forensic Psychology, and Medical Ethics.
He is also still involved in medication safety and obstetric medicine as an independent practitioner, and makes regular submissions to Therapeutic Goods Administration committees.
It’s half a century since Professor Peter J Little graduated from the Victorian College of Pharmacy at Parkville, and he’s made the most of every one of those years.
Professor Peter J Little AM and his Victoria Institute of Colleges Grad Diploma
After further study, including a postdoctoral fellowship at The National Institutes of Health in the US, Professor Little worked as a hospital scientist at The Alfred hospital, and undertook cardiovascular research at the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute.
He was the founding secretary, and later president of the Australian Vascular Biology Society and served as a board member of Diabetes Australia Victoria for 20 years. A stint as board chair and national president followed, during which he negotiated and signed the 2006 National Diabetes Services Agreement, a contract worth $750 million.
In that same year, he was awarded a prestigious National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Senior Research Fellowship.
Professor Little's service to people living with diabetes was recognised with an Order of Australia in 2007.
Always fond of a challenge, Professor Little went on to establish a new School of Pharmacy at RMIT University in Melbourne, while also holding the position of Leader of the Metabolism, Exercise and Disease Program of the RMIT Health Innovations Research Institute.
From 2015 to mid-2020, he was Head of the School of Pharmacy at the University of Queensland, before continuing as a professor, later accepting a voluntary retirement package and the title of Emeritus Professor.
During a few of those years he was also vice president, and then president of the Council of Pharmacy Schools of ANZ.
In his career to date, Professor Little has generated five patents for drugs to inhibit glycosaminoglycan (GAG) elongation. He has also had seminal papers, such as ‘Insulin Resistance and Atherosclerosis’ published in journals such as Endocrine Reviews.
But he’s also taken pride in training other bright minds, including five post-doctoral fellows, 12 PhD students and 20 Honours research students.
His work continues apace, with Professor Little recently publishing his 250th research paper – no mean feat for a pharmacy academic.
Professor Little also sits on numerous editorial boards and continues to take an interest in developing students, concurrently serving as Dean (Visiting) and Chief Professor of the Department of Pharmacy at Guangzhou Xinhua College in China.
To help out during the pandemic, Professor Little drew on his long-held skills once again, returning to community pharmacy practice for a brief time.
