Skip to main content
About
About the RACP
What is a physician or paediatrician?
Membership
College structure
Board and governance
College Council
Committees
Accreditation
Ethics
Consumer Advisory Group
Special Interest Groups
The ROC
Multi-factor authentication
Our heritage
Get involved
Careers at RACP
Medical positions
MyRACP
Congress 2024
News and Events
News
The President's Message
RACP 2024 Elections
Media releases
Events
Congress 2024
Expressions of Interest
RACP in the media
COVID-19
Quick facts
Policy and Advocacy
Represent your profession
Policy and Advocacy Priorities
Policy and Advocacy Library
CPAC reports
Evolve
Voice to Parliament
Make It The Norm
Division, Faculty and Chapter Priorities
Regional Committee Priorities
RACP Foundation
Donate to Foundation
About us
Research Awards and Career Grants
College and Congress prizes
Division, Faculty and Chapter Awards & Prizes
Regional Awards & Prizes
Indigenous Scholarships & Prizes
International Grants
Student Scholarships & Prizes
Terms and Conditions
Our recipients
Contact us
Toggle mobile menu
Search
Home
Become a Physician
Trainees
Fellows
Overseas specialists
About
About the RACP
What is a physician or paediatrician?
Membership
College structure
Board and governance
College Council
Committees
Accreditation
Ethics
Consumer Advisory Group
Special Interest Groups
The ROC
Multi-factor authentication
Our heritage
College Roll
College timeline
History of Medicine Library
Past office bearers
Get involved
Careers at RACP
Medical positions
MyRACP
News and Events
Expressions of Interest
Policy and Advocacy
RACP Foundation
Wellbeing
Contact us
Pomegranate Health
Close menu
▲
Search
Open section menu
▼
About
About the RACP
What is a physician or paediatrician?
Membership
College structure
Board and governance
College Council
Committees
Accreditation
Ethics
Consumer Advisory Group
Special Interest Groups
The ROC
Multi-factor authentication
Our heritage
College Roll
College timeline
History of Medicine Library
Past office bearers
Get involved
Careers at RACP
Medical positions
MyRACP
Open section menu
▼
College Roll Bio
Coen, Joseph
Share
Qualifications
MB Syd (1905) FRACP (1938) (Foundation)
Born
11/11/1880
Died
04/12/1958
Joseph Coen was born at Yass in southern New South Wales where his father was a successful businessman. Educated at St Ignatius College, Riverview and at St John's College, University of Sydney, he graduated in medicine in 1905. He was a good student and a first-class sportsman, gaining university blues in football and rowing. After residency training at St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney he spent about a year in postgraduate work in England and Ireland before returning to set up as a general practitioner in the northern New South Wales town of Lismore. He married Clara Chilcott shortly before starting practice. She bore him five children (one of whom became a surgeon) and throughout his life she remained a strong, even formidable, force behind him.
He spent about twenty years as a country general practitioner, a demanding and all-embracing occupation with little available specialist help. In 1927 he decided to specialise in internal medicine. After visiting the United States to study recent developments, he returned to Sydney with an electrocardiograph - a rather rare instrument in Australia at that time - and set up as a consultant in Macquarie Street with a back-up general practice in Vaucluse. He was appointed honorary physician to Lewisham Hospital and the NSW Community Hospital and his practice grew rapidly. A few years later he was able to cease his general practice and continue exclusively as a consultant. When the College was founded in 1938 he was made a foundation Fellow.
He was a kind man, liked by colleagues and patients equally. Success came to him because of his humanity and his clinical skills acquired in nearly fifty years of practice. In spite of cardiac failure which troubled him for some years, he continued in practice until eighteen months before his death at the age of seventy-eight.
Author
GL McDONALD
References
[
Med J Aust
, 1959,
1
, 891-2]
Last Updated
May 30, 2018, 17:37 PM
Close overlay