Adelaide burns unit hero Professor John Greenwood now a touring rock star
The highly respected SA doctor traded one of the most emotionally draining jobs imaginable for a dream he once thought would never come true.
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So what does a highly respected doctor in one of the most emotionally draining jobs in the land do when he hangs up his stethoscope? Tour Europe in a progressive rock band, of
course. Release an album with the band, release his own album Dark Blue with a glowing foreword from former Genesis lead guitarist Steve Hackett, and dote on his two grandchildren.
Professor John Greenwood is the “happiest I have been in my life”, though some dark shadows occasionally descend – more of that later.
Greenwood became something of a legend leading the SA Adult Burns Service from 2001 to 2020, dealing with horrifically burned patients including survivors of the 2002 Bali bombings. He led the burns unit in Darwin which treated 67 patients in the aftermath of the Bali terrorist bombing, personally attending to 47 patients in a marathon 36-hour shift.
He revolutionised treatment with skin inventions and was South Australian of the Year in 2016 when it was noted he cared for about 450 acute burns patients a year.
He was a hero to many. But the job took its toll. “I reached a point where I was not physically, emotionally or psychologically well enough to carry on doing what I was doing daily,” he says.
“You have to empathise with each and every patient. It is the worst day of that person’s life, so you can’t say ‘Oh, I’ve seen worse’ and you can’t let it interfere with giving them the absolute best treatment you can.”
Throughout his medical career, music had been a release.
MUSICAL BEGINNINGS
Born in Manchester, UK, his early memories are his father playing guitar and singing to gently send John and his sister Donna to sleep.
“I’ll never forget it, I still play some of the songs,” he recalls fondly.
At age seven, his father bought him a guitar, and by his early teens he and some other local lads were playing in pubs and clubs around Manchester, as kids did back in the day.
By his mid-teens they were getting more serious and put down three original songs in a recording studio – but punk was on the ascendancy and “we were playing dinosaur music, it was never going to wash with the recording companies at the time.”
Medicine was the alternate plan. As an ambitious 10 year old he had written to the British Medical Association asking how to become a surgeon, and the kind heart who received the letter sent back a detailed blueprint, so university beckoned.
He didn’t get into medicine, so started in aeronautic engineering where he lasted just a week after realising he was a fish out of water. Despondent, his then-girlfriend, now wife, Helen, convinced him to see the dean of the medical school to ask what he needed to do.
The dean gave him practical advice and a young Greenwood made it into medical school a year later.
Throughout the challenging, rewarding but confronting career that followed as he became a burns specialist, music was a constant creative and comforting outlet for stress. Playing mainly guitar but also mandolin and keyboards, his guitar collection now includes a custom made $US12,000 ($18,000) double neck guitar, a retirement gift to himself.
The value he puts on music is perhaps shown by the advice he gave his son Sam, who was considering a career in music. “I convinced him that if he did medicine, music would always be an outlet for him to relieve stress,” Greenwood says.
“If he did music, he would begin to hate music because he would be doing it as a career. The likelihood is it would just be a job.
“Music is one of those things that should lift your soul whenever you hear it.”
Sam is now a general practitioner and plays piano on his father’s new CD, which is a bit of a family affair – daughter Emma plays cello and vocals, Helen and other family members contributed lyrics.
Greenwood recalls a very cool moment listening to a US radio station when a track from his CD came on and he found himself listening to his daughter singing.
Serendipity saw him make contact with the band Unitopia, whose roots are in Adelaide dating to the mid-1990s and now has members based in multiple time zones. This happened a few months before he retired, and he was invited to join them.
A distinctly new career after retiring from medicine materialised and last year the band toured, playing festivals in Europe and also New Jersey in the US.
THE FIRST GIG
Greenwood recalls preparing to play in front of a crowd of 2800 in Italy. “It was my first gig in 43 years, and I was the weak link,” he says, noting all the other members had impressive onstage pedigrees, such as playing with Genesis, Weather Report, even Elvis.
“I was thinking this is so fabulous, and also I hope I don’t f**k it up,” he says.
“But the whole thing was a blast, we laughed our way across Europe.
“It was one of the hardest and funniest things I have ever done. I certainly didn’t want to get bored in retirement. At the festival in New Jersey, that was the gig where I really felt like a rock star because at midnight, the police turned up and turned us down, and then turned us off.
“It was like being a proper rock star.”
Music from the tour will be released in a live album.
Plans are afoot to tour Europe playing at festivals in 2025, as such things take time to organise. Poland, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Holland, Belgium, France, Spain and Italy are all in the mix.
With a mischievous grin, Greenwood observes some retirees tour Europe looking at castles and cathedrals but he is happy doing it with a guitar.
“It is the best way to have a European holiday,” he quips. “We even sit at tables with our merchandise after a gig where we get to talk to people.”
More seriously, he says the growing number of retirees with plenty of healthy years ahead need to have a plan to stay engaged and interested in life.
“You’ve got to have a plan that involves doing something that is not only completely different to what your career was, but also that’s fairly different from even what your hobbies are,” he says.
“If you work and you play golf every Sunday, then just going to play golf three times a week is not going to do it.
“Instead of inventing polymer skins, I’m now writing music.”
While CD sales have been good in Europe, Greenwood, 60, laughs off the idea it is about the money.
“It is just absolute fun,” he says. “I actually feel a lot younger than when I was working.”
As well as music, his family, including his two grandchildren, are “what I live for – they are pure joy”.
“I am the happiest I have ever been,” he says.
However, this is not a new career fairy tale with a completely happy ending.
Decades of dealing with burns victims have taken its toll, and there is baggage that can’t be left at the door.
The smell of burnt wood, or of petrol, can trigger memories of sights few can comprehend.
While others may offer sympathy, only those who work in this challenging field truly understand the legacy of being a burns medico, giving comfort and even life to those who have been through hell on earth.
Greenwood recalls in 2002 a high profile TV reporter came into the SA Adult Burns Service to see the Bali bombing survivors while they were still in intensive care.
“He simply couldn’t handle it – in the end he didn’t come in,” he says.
“Because you see such things in volume may mean you are more adept and efficient at dealing with them without being overly emotional, but it does not mean you are not empathetic.
“The things I’ve seen you can’t unsee. So they come back every now and then and they make me sad. Then you have to blast the bad memories out with good memories.”
And sometimes just pick up your double neck, custom made guitar, strum out a melody that makes your heart sing and plan a European tour while having fun with the grandchildren.
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