Dr. Jurriaan Beek of the Casino Medical Center was recently honored to learn that he would receive the prestigious Medal of the Order of Australia due to his dedication to the community and to medicine. This award, recognized nationally, rewards outstanding service and achievement to the community.
According to Beek, when he received the letter last year in September, he had gotten the surprise of his life. Though the award is an honor, Dr. Beek also says he never sought public recognition when he set out for his medical career, stating: “You don’t do medicine for the award, you do medicine to help people.”
Since 1980, Dr. Beek has practiced medicine in obstetrics as well as teaching the art to several medical students in the area. In addition to this, he has regularly been involved in educating others at the Casino Medical Center since 1981 while also being a diploma examiner for the New Zealand College of Obstetrics, the Royal Australian as wella s the Gynaecology Board of Examinors since the year 2005. Finally, he has also been a conjoint lecturer since 2011 for the School of Medicine at the University of Western Sydney.
Dr. Beek states that he has always enjoyed teaching as it is a very important part of a profession, provided the individual wants that profession to continue on for years.
Prior to his enrollment in the medical field at the age of 28, Dr. Beek had already obtained a degree in science while working for seven years as a chemist as well as publishing numerous physics papers as he worked four years in a research lab and obtained his masters in physics.
However, it was a visit to a Karkar Island hospital not too far from Papua New Guinea when a volunteer held a program in the 60s that planted the idea of medicine in his head.