Geoffrey Lewis Klug

22nd September 1935 - 15th July 2025

A eulogy kindly supplied by Wirginia Maixner

It is with a deep sense of loss yet honour to speak to you of Geoff’s life as a neurosurgeon.

Geoff graduated from the University of Melbourne Medical School in 1959 and undertook his residency at the Royal Melbourne Hospital in 1960. Under the leadership of Reginald Hooper, one of Australia’s first neurosurgeons, he obtained his Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1965 in general surgery. At this time globally, neurosurgery was just emerging as a specialty in its own right and had no training program of its own. Paediatric neurosurgery as a specialty was almost nonexistent.

In this environment Geoff, who described himself as a “Hooper boy”, was encouraged by him to become a paediatric neurosurgeon. Thus it was that Geoff, despite having qualified as a surgeon became a resident in paediatrics in 1966 and a paediatric neurosurgical registrar in 1967 at the RCH prior to undertaking international neurosurgical fellowships at Great Ormond Street (1968), Royal Infirmary Edinburgh (1969) and Toronto Sick Children’s (1971). During this time Geoff was under the tutelage of some of the most renowned paediatric neurosurgeons of their time.

On his return he became assistant surgeon at the Alfred Hospital and Queen Victoria Hospital prior to taking on the mantle of Head of the Department of Neurosurgery at the RCH in 1974 when Reg Hooper stepped down. Geoff was only 39 at the time.  He held this position until1995. Geoff remained a senior neurosurgeon at the RCH until 2009. During this time and afterwards Geoff was a respected advisor on Medical Panels Victoria until he had to cease these during COVID restrictions.

Geoff was truly one of Australia’s pioneering paediatric neurosurgeons being instrumental in the growth of the speciality not just in Victoria, but in Australia and beyond. During his leadership he developed craniofacial surgery with Tony Holmes, helping to establish the RCH craniofacial Unit as one of Australia’s premier craniofacial services. He advanced care in spina bifida surgery. He was a leader in paediatric epilepsy surgery and with Ian Hopkins established one of Australia’s first paediatric epilepsy surgery programs.  He improved head injury management and was instrumental in acknowledging the necessity of helmets when bike riding.

Geoff’s directorship saw many advances in paediatric neurosurgery - the microscope, an ultrasonic aspiration device for tumour removal and advances in oncological management of child brain tumours. Each of these he integrated into neurosurgical practice at RCH.

Geoff was a skilled clinician and intrepid neurosurgeon. He trained in the era before modern imaging of CT’s and MRI’s and navigation systems but saw their integration into common use. To this day I remain in awe how he was able to accurately localise deep seated brain lesions with just skill alone.

He would read widely and was not afraid to try new techniques and approaches to improve patient care. Mind you they didn’t always work. But he would learn from the error and adapt that technique so that they did, with many successes. Geoff collaborated widely with colleagues, a philosophy that he acknowledged was fostered when he was required to live in the hospital as a junior doctor. He sought help and gave help to colleagues in Sydney over shared complex patients, sometimes sending them interstate for a “new thought process”.

I could go on, but these are just facts. They do not do justice to the man who was the neurosurgeon. I have been Geoff’s trainee, his colleague and junior and ultimately his boss, a somewhat unique position. With permission of his work colleagues I would like to share some memories of Geoff as we knew him.

When I think of Geoff the first word that comes to mind is

Warmth

No matter how long it had been since you last saw him Geoff would always greet you enthusiastically with warmth and welcome. Virginia he would say, it’s lovely to see you. It wasn’t just to me but to all and particularly so to his patients and their families. His clinics were a great place to be. He had this knack of remembering small pieces of information that mattered. When my mother passed he sent a beautiful email highlighting the one time he had met her at a work function and captured amazing detail. Nursing staff recall he would regularly check up on patients long after they had left the care of the ward, genuinely interested in their well-being.

He would spread happiness, routinely coming in on Christmas Day to spend time with the children, their families, ward staff, junior doctors, everyone. He knew how to talk to children. A child with a shunt  - a tube draining fluid from his brain to his tummy asked him “Dr Klug, If I do a handstand is the poo from my belly going to come to my brain?” To which Geoff, somewhat theatrically as was his want replied “excellent question” and gesturing with his right arm says out loud “No! No! No!, it is a one way system, the fluid from your brain goes to your belly but nothing, nothing at all returns to your brain”.

Geoff could sing.  He had such a beautiful resonant voice. He would sing Danny Boy while he was operating, in fact that was how you knew there was a tricky part as he would go quiet and at the end of the case when all was well he would burst into full chorus.

Compassion and wisdom

As a neurosurgeon there are times when we have to deliver confronting and tragic news to parents. Geoff didn’t like those meetings and would always steel himself before going into the room. But once there he knew how to talk to parents. How to let them know the gravity of their child’s illness and give them courage for the long road ahead. He helped many parents accept their child for who they would become after a severe head injury -  “ don’t look at other kids, don’t focus on school results, look at who they are and what they can do, walk beside them at their speed”.

And with compassion came hope and optimism. I remember a child who was deeply unconscious from a shunt blockage, a child who no one thought would recover except Geoff. Virginia, he said, wait and see, in a few months she will wake up, and she did and walked out of hospital. And in those three months not a day went by that his optimism wavered.

Geoff Cared

Not just about patients but about you, the person. Whether you were his junior or senior, nursing staff or colleague. I was his registrar and I was part of the hospital medical revue – a yearly production by the resident staff. I had a small but essential part in a 10 minute skit. We were on call together and as fate would have it a child came in with an acute surgical emergency. So there was Geoff and I scrubbed in the middle of the case when there was a call saying  that I was due on stage. He didn’t bat an eyelid, told me how being part of resident activities was important, how he himself had been in med revues before and, said off you go but come back as soon as you have finished which I did and we finished the case.  That was quite a unique experience in neurosurgery training.

His care would be expressed in the support he gave you as a colleague, in the way without hesitation he came  when I was a consultant to lend a hand in a case that developed an unexpected complication, or the way with consummate patience he assisted me to perform my first hemispherotomy – an operation that splits the brain in two and in which he endured 13 hours of surgery as my assistant.

It was this care and patience that made Geoff an excellent teacher. He was happy to share his knowledge with residents, trainees, nursing staff and peers and taking delight in your success.

But perhaps the hallmark of Geoff was his good humour

For Geoff was always happy, even on difficult days. He never said a harsh word about or to anyone. He was always kind, respectful, witty and approachable. It still surprises me that as his registrar I felt I could play a practical joke on Geoff, one that I have to say that I couldn’t follow through with because he was too nice, surprises me not because Geoff was gullible, but because even though he was my boss, it was OK.

For Geoff  was the sort of person who when we were at Queenstown skiing at a Neurosurgery conference and a blizzard hit , comes sailing past us up over the cat trail, over a ledge, disappears, goes into the car park and lands it upright with a smile, he is the one who was the life of the party at our end of year functions, always up on the dance floor and sometimes on the tables, the one who on my last day operating as a registrar recited the Man From Snowy River from start to finish as a parting gift.