Bill Nardi recently celebrated his 80th birthday. He contributed more than 30 years as an ophthalmologist in the Lismore area. Bill is the perfect example of hard work. Over 10 years of study in the medical profession, Bill was able to change the perception of rural surgeons. In an era where city surgeons received accolades, Bill was instrumental in ensuring regional doctors received the credit they deserved.

Bill sat down with Philip Tsourlinis to discuss his study, career, cricket and life growing up.

I was born in 1943 at the old Lismore maternity hospital, where the RSL Club used to be. I grew up in Nimbin and went to the primary school in Nimbin. Then it was off to Lismore High School, where I caught the bus from Nimbin every day, which took an hour.

At the same time as I finished school in 1959, TV was first introduced in Australia. My father, Angelo, was a Terania Shire Councillor and, in his own time, would go bushwalking and hunting in the mountains around the Nimbin area.

Interesting fact, when the Post Master General Department (PMG) sought a site to beam TV into the Richmond and Tweed area, my father took the survey team into those mountains. It was then they decided that they would name the area as Mount Nardi. 

I spent my youth working very hard. I would work on our family farm on Blue Knob Road while in high school and for a few years after I finished high school. It was often seven days a week. This meant I had no weekends. 

I would work with my brothers and father, where I would be the Indian, while the others were the chief. I wanted to become the chief, so I concluded that farm work at that stage differed from what I wanted. 

In 1961, after two years of graduating high school with high marks, it prompted me to see the headmaster to ask him if I could obtain a Commonwealth Scholarship. This allowed me to apply to Sydney University in Medicine. It was lucky that the high marks I received in my high school years allowed me to be accepted in a minimal quota of students. 

It was here that my life began to really take off. Little did I know, is that this path would change my life. 

I left the farm and started studying medicine, where I shared a flat in Coogee with a few friends in their third year at University. University life isn't easy. Between the challenges of studying and passing required tests, I had to afford the rent and have enough money to get by. 

I was not given any living allowance through the scholarship, so I had several jobs picking grapes at my sister's vineyard and a cellar. They lived in Rooty Hill. I worked at Sydney Stadium as an usher and watched some fantastic boxing fights. The best part of that job was watching The Beatles and having them walk past no more than a meter away from me. That was incredible. 

I also drove taxis on Friday and Saturday nights till the early morning hours. Fitting studying in-between. 

So it was a tough slog. 

In my fourth year of study in 1966, my world really changed.

As part of my fourth year, we were attached to various hospitals, and I went to St Vincent's in Darlinghurst, where I stayed until the final sixth year of study. In that fourth year, I also met my wife, Pam.

While in Darlinghurst, one of my good mates I met there, Peter Briscoe, nicknamed 'the master' because he seemed to have a new girlfriend every night of the week (we were all jealous), organised for our group of boys to a Dragon Ball, where his girlfriend who was a nurse, brought her nursing friends from Sydney Hospital to the Dragon Ball. Pam was one of them.

We met again at another party down the track, where I made the move. She couldn't resist. We got engaged in June 1966 and married in January of 1967. We didn't muck around. We went on to have four kids. Louise, Cathryn, William and Angus.

After finishing my exams in the late 1960s, I got high credits and was accepted into St Vincent's in Darlinghurst as a junior resident medical officer. 

At this point, I started carving out my career path. 

(Bill and Pam Nardi after graduation in the late 1960s)

During my second year as a resident medical officer, I looked at the prospect of moving back to Lismore as an independent specialist as an ophthalmologist. There were roadblocks in country towns regarding being an independent specialist. There was a stigma in those days that all the specialists had to operate out of the city, so the options were limited. The one type of specialist you could be in a country town was an eye surgeon. So off to Lismore, I went.

So, I started eye training and another five years of intense training and study. Two years of general training and three years of training in an approved hospital setting, plus passing a primary and secondary exam on anatomy, optics, pathology and surgery. St Vincent's in Lismore accepted me for the first two years of that study. Halfway through my second year at Lismore, The Eye Register of Lismore, a female, left her position, and I was made the Eye Register. 

During my third year, I returned to Sydney for broader training and got a job at Sydney Hospital.

When I finished my training in 1972/73, I moved back to Lismore. After over ten years of intense study and dedication, I was ready. 

Exciting story, now that I was living in the Northern Rivers, I worked a stint in Tweed Heads; I was offered a job in Lismore in 1973.

I wanted to get my furniture from my family's premises in Nimbin back to Lismore, as it so happened, it was the first Nimbin Aquarius Festival, which had blocked the ute I was driving from passing through Nimbin town. "Get out of my way; I was born here, you mongrels", I said. I forced my way through. There were naked people, and I was amongst them, getting in their faces and asking them to move out of my way. It's the 50th anniversary of that moment this year. 

I opened my own practice, where I had my first patient, who was a cane farmer who cut his eye open on a sugar cane leaf. 

(Bill Nardi's practice in Conway Street)

The practice grew; I had a part-time receptionist and many bookings scheduled. 

In 1989, I introduced a teaching scheme to train beginning ophthalmologists in a rural setting in Lismore in association with Sydney Eye Hospital. This was part of a Government program to expose students to the real world. However, being located in the regional area of Lismore, new registrars wanting to be upskilled felt that they would get a different level of professional training than they would in a city hospital. 

This is where I was able to change that perception. I not only trained them really well, but the experience they had with me also made them good professionals. Many of these students went on to work in other country areas, enjoying the country lifestyle and now understanding that they can achieve the same level of success as the city doctors. 

This was important. This meant that regional areas started to get outstanding specialists moving into their areas to live and work their careers. The country areas benefited from this. 

I then became an examiner on the Advanced Clinical Examination Board for nearly a decade. I would examine students' final exams.

I was the only one from the country that was an examiner at that time for the final exam, so I was all over the place: Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide, Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland.

So that was a great experience.

Living in Lismore has its perks. I love cricket, and one of my best memories was in 1991, I was the doctor for the North Coast Cricket Association. India was playing New South Wales at Oakes Oval, where I had to attend to Sachin Tendulkar.

(Bill in his Lismore practice office where he operated for many years)

Geoff Lawson thundered in a great bouncer and hit the great young Indian batsman in the chest. His captain, Kapil Dev, told Tendulkar that the hit was nothing and that he was being a sook. That was fun and a great experience. I love cricket. I have travelled with former Australian wicketkeeper Ian Healy's parents to the 1997 Ashes tour in England. We cheered Healy and the boys on together. I was a member of the GABBA and enjoyed watching test cricket there. 

I gave up operating 20 years ago. I was 58 years old when I stopped. I did some part-time consulting. However, that did not involve surgery. Hospitals, politics and the drama of dealing with bureaucrats pushed me toward retirement. 

In 2019 I was awarded the Order of Australia Medal in the Queen's Birthday Honours list. It was for 'service to medicine in the field of ophthalmology' and training 53 registrars in Lismore on the program I developed with Sydney Eye Hospital.

Above all, my proudest achievements were my children and wife Pam.

I've got four kids who have all done very well.

And my wife was a great supporter always - she deserves the award more than I do. She was always very heavily involved in everything.