As the 2025 / 26 Australian Stipis excitedly await their presentation evening and upcoming exchange, we look back at a boy from Melbourne who went off to Dinslaken on a SAGSE exchange back in 2002. In Dinslaken he was hosted by Sebastian Strube, who later went on to become the President of our German partner organisation GDANSA. Stewart studied Medicine and orthopaedic surgery, with long stints in Minneapolis, Berlin and Stuttgart. He also had a very productive stint on the SAGSE Victoria committee, and these days he is an Orthopaedic Surgeon specialising in Paediatric Limb Reconstruction, Adult Complex Reconstruction and Paediatric Tumour Surgery.
Year of exchange: 2002 / 03
Group Leader: Beau Burton
School: Scotch College Melbourne
German Teacher: Frau Elaine Tarran
Sponsor: Allianz
Town / city of exchange in Germany: Dinslaken
To this day, I cannot believe how well matched I was to my host brother Sebastian Strube. At the time we had a great love for music, emerging technologies of the era such as the newfangled digital cameras, ICQ Messenger, and CD burners... Subsequent to this, Sebastian has gone to work in executive at Lufthansa, making my transit through Frankfurt Airport often smooth and friendly. I have travelled extensively enough for work, and have often caught up with Sebastian to compare airline seats, airports, and grab brunch while we are at it.
I studied medicine at Monash (MBBS 2008) and entered orthopaedic surgery training (FRACS(Orth) 2017). And then I went overseas for further training… more on that below…
I am now the Deputy Director of Orthopaedics at the Royal Childrens’ Hospital Melbourne. As an Orthopaedic Surgeon I specialize in Paediatric Limb Reconstruction, Adult Complex Reconstruction and Paediatric Tumour Surgery. I work at the Royal Children's Hospital, Alfred Health, and the Epworth. I also have an MCRI appointment and run a number of research registries, in additional to sitting on number of national and international Teaching faculties.
Because of my niche area, I pursued further fellowship training overseas, and while completing a 12 month limb reconstruction fellowship in Minneapolis, USA, decided I would see whether my German language connection would support me in completing a 6 month paediatric orthopaedic fellowship in Germany.
I connected with Herr Prof Dr Thomas Wirth, who is in charge of the Paediatric Orthopaedic Clinic at Olgahospital, Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany to whom I am to this day indebted.
After enormous amounts of local and international paperwork, I was able to successfully obtain the position. In order to prepare for this, I enrolled in weekly social German evening class in Minnesota [with all the free time I did not have] as well as engaging private tuition weekly at the University of Minnesota. In my last month in the US I had to fly to New York City to sit the 4 hour B2 German exam at the Goethe Institute. This was one of the biggest exam challenges of my academic life, but I passed.
Once I began working in Stuttgart, (pictured above) I then had to sit C1 Fachsprachenprüfung Niveau for the Landesärztekammer Baden-Württemberg. The assessing faculty found this quite amusing that an Australian doctor was speaking German, to achieve medical registration in Germany, and the conversation quickly drifted from the clinical cases to my pathway to that point. Only on beginning work in Stuttgart did I realise that the locals did not even speak German - They spoke Schwäbisch which increased my learning curve even further!
Ultimately, this was an incredibly rewarding experience and tertiary paediatric work in Germany is critical to my career arc to date, though I must say that when one speaks another language travelling and orders the wrong meal at a restaurant or gets on the wrong train it is a funny story. However, when one is arguing with an anaesthetist over the phone, in German, the stakes for mistakes are a lot higher.
I returned to Berlin a couple of years ago, and to my amusement, apparently I still have a slight Schwäbisch accent, confusing people no end.
I did not even mention that I completed an 8-week elective in final year med, working at Charite Hospital in Berlin in 2008.
My German language skills have always drawn me back to Germany, and each time I do so the connections and collegiality and opportunities it provides, is marvellous. I also had the opportunity to work with Professor Rainer Baumgart, developer of the FitBONE motorised internal lengthening nail, in 2019. This opportunity only arose because of my German language skills. A lot of the German limb reconstruction surgeons now consider me "one of their own" at international conferences, which is an absolute honour.
I guess that learning German provided me with opportunities and interesting pathways that I never otherwise would have achieved, and even in spite of the omnipresence of English, I really would encourage the next generation to continue to learn German and other languages, because it allows you to think about things and experience things in ways that are not possible when one's whole life exists purely in the English language sphere.
Thanks to SAGSE and I hope that in whatever form it takes the organisation continues to provide amazing life changing opportunities for many years to come.