Dr Stan Weakley: 1953-2023
Stan was a man of stalwart soul. Staunchly loyal and never afraid to tackle opposition head on.
In our practice, he was our Anatolian mountain dog, these are dogs bred to protect a flock of sheep. They are imbedded in the flock from birth and are there to rip out the throat of any jackal or wolf that may threaten his adopted sheep family! Really handy to have him around and keep the wolves at bay.
I think Stan enjoyed the thrust and parry of debate and indeed a smile would crease his face with a rumbling chuckle at the onset of adversity.
His origins were in Queenstown and that tough school certainly fashioned a hardy individual. His daughter Kate relates that as a boy he had spent many hours in the mountains in and around Queenstown collecting all sorts of creepy crawleys, snakes, birds eggs etc. At one stage or another he had a pet crow, an eagle and a meerkat to name a few. His mom never quite knew what creatures may be lurking about and so was too scared to ever open any of the drawers in his bedroom.
Stan did well at school to allow selection to the UCT Medical Faculty where, while absorbing vast amounts of knowledge, he played hooker in the heart of the scrum for the Med School rugby team. Housemanship at Frere followed with National Service in the Navy (where he said that he was proof that persistent heavy drinking did not lead to pancreatitis). He also met Anne Weare , a nurse in training who would become his wife and lifelong companion.
Then began his early foray into surgery at Frere Hospital as a medical officer, rubbing shoulders and guided by old school surgeons. Stan returned, after this initiation to more than the basics of surgical experience, to Groote Schuur in 1984 to train as a surgeon. He really enjoyed the discipline and rigours of the surgical rotation under the mentorship of the whole system with mainstays of Professors Terblanche, De Villiers, Immelmann and Dent. He enjoyed Prof Phillip Bornman and Solly Marks in the GIT clinic with Jake Krige as guiding lights along his journey to emerge as a real general surgeon of old – with abilities embracing GIT surgery to vascular surgery amongst a whole gamut of skills needed to tackle the surgical needs of our community. At Frere he taught students and medical officers and ultimately devoted time to private practice in East London with Peter Comfort, Claude Schultz and later myself.
Practical jokes abounded. He related with great delight that during surgical training and with the complicity of the patient, he had pasted a drain bag full of bile stained fluid onto the abdominal wall of one of Prof Raoul de Villiers’s freshly post – gastrectomy patients. On the grand ward round, the bedsheet of the clearly unperturbed and thriving patient was turned back and showed the Prof this stark evidence of a feared leak. The Prof took a moment to click “ JA you jokers – I didn’t leave a drain at all!” – much to everyone’s mirth.
When operating with Stan in theatre and offering him spurious advice , he’d stop and bark “Who is doing this operation?”
Really organised – Stan’s patient management was really organised to the last dotted i and crossed t. His note keeping impeccable. He was involved in ATLS training and the boards of Frere Hospital and the local Life Healthcare Hospitals with great commitment.
At the time of his retirement, Stan walked out of his long dedication to surgery at the age of sixty – with no glancing back – to tackle his wide interests in 4×4 adventures, especially his long- planned trip across 45 000 km of Africa to Sudan at the edge of the Red Sea and back. His account of his journey with his loyal wife Anne in his ‘Slow Donkey’ was documented in the 4×4 annals to great acclaim. We still have a wood carving of a large giraffe nibbling the office pot plant at our rooms as a memento of his return from one of his previous travels through far flung civilisations in Africa. Stan had a superb knowledge of birds and was a keen fisherman.
Lots of stories emitted from Round Table and his life experiences. Stan so enjoyed these good stories of the complexity and follies and triumphs of all the people around him in society.
He loved his family beyond anything. He and Anne raised wonderful children and in the chats we had during his illness , it is so evident that he was so proud of Sarah, Kate and Peter. He spoke of his son in law, Gideon, who got a big nod from Stan. Stan’s face again creased with great delight at any mention of his grandson , Theo, who gave Stan great joy.
Stan succumbed to the effects of widespread thyroid malignancy on the 10th of February 2023 amidst the support and love of his family. Rest in peace friend and colleague.
Neil Comley and Kate van Tonder.