Tokyo-based N.Z. doctor treats many star patients

Press, 12 September 1986, Page 17

Tokyo-based N.Z. doctor treats many star patients

John Steinbeck looked quite unlike the raunchy writer of literary folklore the day Dr Allan Fair, examined him in Tokyo. But Dr‘Fair, a New Zealand doctor resident in Japan since the Korean War in the 19505, has got accustomed to seeing international celebrities as ordinary people — the more so when they become sick. While visiting Japan, the author of “The Grapes of Wrath” and “Cannery Row” had caught influenza. And as so many visitors before and since have done, he called Tokyo Medical and Surgical Clinic and asked for an English-speaking doctor. Dr Fair answered the hotel call. Steinbeck — “a big, beefy chap,” as Dr Fair recalls — was in no mood to compose any of his vivid prose for the benefit of the visiting medico. “I told him I thought he had the then prevalent Asian flu,” he remembers. “He replied, ‘As far as I can see, the Asian flu is just plain flu with a press agent’." When the playwright, Tennessee Williams, got sick in Tokyo he exhibited none of the traits that made him a hot topic inside and outside literary circles. The writer of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” and “Streetcar Named Desire,” needed a doctor, not to treat alcoholism or drug effects, but a respiratory infection. Williams could manage only to describe his symptoms as “nothing memorable.” The conductor, Charles Munch, was equally uncommunicative from his Tokyo sickbed. On the concert platform, his music thrilled the world. When Dr Fair called he simply wanted to get well and complete a Japan concert tour. Barbara Hutton, the Woolworths heiress and a frequent Japan traveller between husbands, called for the Fair treatment. She was too sick for bon mots. “Illness,” Dr Fair concludes, “tends to keep people to the point.” It is too facile to label Dr Fair “the Tokyo doctor to the stars.” The New Zealander himself scoffs at the mere suggestion. For reasons of medical ethics, he refuses to drop names of living patients. And innate modesty prevents him from saying much about a gaggle of celebrities, long since dead, whom he treated as part of the routine clinic practice. The clinic at ihe foot of Tokyo’s best known tourist market, Tokyo Tower, has treated more “gaijin” (foreigners) than

any other in Japan. Foreign embassies almost invariably telephone in before their top officials arrive from overseas, just in case. A couple of decades ago the clinic could expect emergency calls at any time from hotels. Nowadays, foreigners staying at top hotels such as the Imperial and New Otani have access to inhouse doctors. But still the three clinic physicians — Dr Koichi Fujii, Dr John Marshall, and Dr Fair, soon to be joined by a fourth — are on the emergency list of many of Tokyo’s foreign community. Over 90 per cent of the clinic’s patients are non-Japanese. Half are Americans. The patients are covered by their own health insurance plans, as distinct from Japan’s national medical coverage. Those foreign residents who take Japanese cover are eligible for treatment by an increasing number of English-speaking Japanese general practitioners. “Our patients find the practice here is more like G.P.S’ back home,” Dr Fair says. “Some foreigners say they find visits to Japanese clinics more like going to the outpatients’ department of a big hospital.” For non-English speakers, language is no big deal here, although the doctors do at times resort to a question-and-answer book printed by the “Japan Times” in several languages, including Japanese. “Most foreigners here are diplomats or businessmen with English ability,” Dr Fair says. “Occasionally a woman less fluent in English will bring her husband or someone to interpret. Nowadays there are doctors from Germany, India, and Russia.” When Dr Fair arrived, fresh from the Korean War, it was not that way. A graduate of Otago University, he had done a year’s internship in Auckland and a post-graduate diploma in paediatrics at London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital. In Europe, he had toured refugee camps, examining two boatloads of refugees emigrating to New Zealand. In Geneva, the International Refugee Organisation invited him to serve in Korea where the war was raging. R. and R. leave in Tokyo whet his interest in Japan and when Bill Challis, then New Zealand’s charge d’affaires there and later ambassador to Indonesia, men-

tioned that a new clinic run by i Scottish surgeon from Hon; Kong, Grenier Wedderburn, wa looking for someone, he appliet and got the job. More accustomed to asking questions than answering them the white-haired, 65-year-old Di Fair diffidently agrees that clinic practice in Japan is profession ally very satisfying. “We have OUr own X-ray anc laboratory facilities,” he says “Consultants come to us. We chai to specialists on the spot instead of writing to them and getting back a letter.” The foreign community, bj and large, is a fairly healthy lot "People come to Japan to work They don’t come if they are nol fit. We are sometimes called on to decide major surgery, whether it should be done here or wail until the patient goes home.” Hospital services are much better than in Dr Fair’s early Tokyo days. “Medical care in Japan is high by world standards, and most comprehensive,” he says. Does that explain why the Japanese live longer than all other nationalities? “Genetics come into it, too,” he replies. “Besides, the Japanese diet is well balanced.” Stress-related illness is a prob lem, though better counselling services are now available tc head off psychiatric problems and physical effects. “People face environmental problems when they come here adjusting to a different way ol life and facing problems nol encountered in home countries like finding a place and getting around. Some are shocked. Some get frustrated.” Dr Fair is not one of these latter. Single, fit, and apparently tireless, he obviously loves hie career. “I also love to travel,” he adds. "So far, I’ve been to 5( countries.” Retirement? No plans, “thougt I must admit New Zealand is looking increasingly attractive.” And there are plenty of family members scattered around the world to visit — an oldei brother, John, a businessman ir Wellington; a sister, Mrs Suzanne Panckhurst, in Auckland; anc two other brothers, Donald, e retired economist in London; anc James, chief executive of the Victorian Government lottery ir Melbourne.

By

ALAN GOODALL,

New Zealand-

Japan News